Three Strategies for Evasion

August 15, 2011

In his 1965 book, Christianity and Social Progress, Fr. John Cronin wrote as follows:

The social teaching of the Church has presented problems to many Catholics. Today we speak in terms of awe and reverence of the great encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. Yet the social messages of these pontiffs met resistance as well as acclaim. There were some who openly opposed these teachings. Others gave them the “silent treatment,” by ignoring their pleas and making no effort to put them into practice.1

Although fifty years after Fr. Cronin wrote no longer does everyone “speak in terms of awe and reverence of the great encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI,” still his words are helpful reminders that Catholics have not always had that docility toward the teaching Church which one would expect from those presumably convinced that the Church speaks with the voice of Christ. And in fact today dissent from those teachings is far more common and more open than was the case when Fr. Cronin wrote those words. While one is hardly surprised to find dissent from Catholic teaching among liberal Catholics, it is just as common to find it among conservative Catholics. These latter, however, since they see themselves as faithful adherents to Catholic doctrine, necessarily must create some strategy of disguising their dissent from Catholic teaching. There are, it seems to me, three main strategies used by conservative Catholics to justify their dissent from papal social teaching. Let us take a look at each of them in turn.

Our first type is the most bold, and in a way, the most honest of the three. This is the strategy of a straightforward denial, an outright rejection of social doctrine. This is the strategy common among Catholic adherents of the Austrian school of economics, for example, those associated with the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Let us review some of their statements. First Thomas Woods:

The primary difficulty with much of what has fallen under the heading of Catholic social teaching since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) is that it assumes without argument that the force of human will suffices to resolve economic questions, and that reason and the conclusions of economic law can be safely neglected, even scorned… This attitude runs directly counter to the entire Catholic intellectual tradition, according to which man is to conform his actions to reality, rather than embarking on the hopeless and foolish task of forcing the world to conform to him and to his desires.2

Moreover Woods rejects as “perfectly nonsensical” the claim that his position “involves himself in ‘dissent’ from Church teaching.”3 Why? Because,

In the absence of any attempt to address these issues [i.e., the alleged conflict between Catholic teaching and reason], it is difficult to see how the economic claims of the social encyclicals can actually constitute authoritative Catholic doctrine binding upon the consciences of all the faithful.4

And he further states:

One hesitates to describe Catholic social teaching as an abuse of papal and ecclesiastical power, but surely the attempt to impose, as moral doctrine binding the entire Catholic world, principles that derive from the popes’ intrinsically fallible reasoning within a secular discipline like economics, seems dubious. At the very least, it appears to constitute an indefensible extension of the prerogatives of the Church’s legitimate teaching office into areas in which it possesses no inherent competence or divine protection from error.5

And lastly a statement made by another Catholic Austrian, William Luckey:

The fact that Catholic economic teaching, put forth as unchanging and required of belief, did not square with what Austrian economists know to be true, has created an agonizing crisis of conscience for such economists.6

There is certainly no lack of boldness here, even of what we may call chutzpah.

As far as I can see, very few priests have adopted this mode of dissent from Catholic teaching. That may be because few priests who value a reputation for adherence to the magisterium want to be associated with a method of dissent which is so obvious and clear. For the Austrians make no bones about rejecting Catholic social teaching. It is true that they claim such teaching is not authoritative, but it takes a strong stomach to so openly reject what clearly the supreme pontiffs themselves regard as an important part of their teaching authority. Therefore, one or other of the next two strategies is more likely to appeal to those who, for whatever reason, don’t have such strong stomachs.

Our next type of dissent is perhaps associated most prominently with the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and its president, Fr. Robert Sirico, but also with such figures as Michael Novak and George Weigel. This strategy is a little more nuanced, and a bit more plausible than the Austrian method. But it is just as much dissent. What is this strategy? It is to claim that whatever Catholic social teaching may have taught in the past, beginning with Pope John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, this has changed and the Church has finally embraced free-market economics. Let us again look at a few of the statements of this point of view. Fr. Sirico wrote,

The Church, during certain periods, has strongly criticized what was construed to be the free society, partly because some social thinkers conflated the theories of economic liberalism with moral libertinism, viewing them as one in the same and as mutually reinforcing.7

But now, so he says, because “of the courage of John Paul II and his case in favor of the free society … No longer do we feel compelled to speak of classical liberalism and religious orthodoxy as belonging to two separate intellectual worlds.” And more to the same,

Centesimus Annus represents the beginnings of a shift away from the static zero-sum economic world view that led the Church to be suspicious of capitalism and to argue for wealth redistribution as the only moral response to poverty.8

Now it is not the case that Centesimus initiated a new direction in the Church’s social teaching, for the interpretation of Fr. Sirico, Michael Novak and others depends on a selective and tendentious reading of that encyclical. (For a discussion of this, see my article What Does Centesimus Annus Really Teach?) And in fact, these authors have not been as loud in claiming a radical change in Catholic social teaching since the appearance of Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate. Indeed, Weigel is known as the writer of an absurd rant on that encyclical. But more importantly, this kind of dissent, to the extent that one can say it was ever done in good faith, fails to address two important questions. In the first place, if we consider the teaching of the Church as coming from Jesus Christ, how is it possible for the Church to change what was admittedly a part of her patrimony of moral teaching? Does this not open up pretty much all of Catholic doctrine to change at the whim of the reigning pope? And secondly, if John Paul really could and did set social doctrine in a fundamentally new direction, could not a future pope either restore it to its former state or set out some other approach to social doctrine? And thus if all we have here are the changeable and hence fallible opinions of the reigning pope, why should any Catholic care about Catholic social teaching anyway? Only if it is the teaching of Jesus Christ ought we to care about Catholic doctrine, and if it can be altered so easily, then it could hardly be the teaching of Jesus Christ.

I do not deny, to be sure, that portions of the papal social encyclicals are of limited authority, either because they apply for the most part to conditions that no longer exist or that existed only in some places, or because they were simply prudential applications of general principles made by a particular pontiff. Such statements as these do not have universal or binding authority. But the kind of change in direction which Fr. Sirico and his associates have spoken of concerns the fundamental principles of social doctrine, principles which have been reiterated by popes since at least Leo XIII, including by John Paul II. It is hard to see how these could be altered without holding that the Church has taught error as part of her doctrinal patrimony, or that social doctrine is not really part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Finally we come to what seems to be the most recent effort to undermine the demands of Catholic social teaching. This is the most nuanced strategy of all, for it does not depend either on outright rejection of papal teaching or on a tendentious reading of one document among many in a long series. Rather it depends on the undoubted fact that most Catholics have not read the social encyclicals and therefore are profoundly ignorant of their contents. Thus if they are misrepresented by these authors, few will be the wiser. But the misrepresentation engaged in by these authors is clever. It does not involve selective quotations as does the method of Fr. Sirico. Rather this third group of writers makes the assertion that papal social teaching simply sets forth certain more or less vague goals, and that everyone is free to work toward those goals by any means he thinks best. And the goals are generally said to be such platitudes as that we should help the poor or better the condition of workers, and things of that sort. For example, one recent commentator wrote, “The basic error is the failure to see that the foundational teachings and principles of CST can be applied in practice in a wide variety of ways—and working out the application of such principles in any given case rightly falls mainly to the laity, not the hierarchy.” The difficulty with this writer’s approach is that he fails to note that the popes, while not for the most part setting forth detailed prescriptions which are universally binding for applying social doctrine, have ruled out a number of approaches as erroneous, and insisted on a number of points as binding (I will note some of these below).

In today’s climate of bitter partisan debate such statements can easily be seized upon by those whose principles are in fact opposed to those espoused by the popes. So that someone who truly believed, or who claimed to believe, that the best way to help the worker was by abolishing the minimum wage or multiplying Wal-Marts throughout the world, could use this approach to claim support for his opinions in papal teaching as much as those who pursued the traditional social apostolate of the Church, by encouraging unions or cooperation between workers and employers.

As I mentioned, it is true that the popes have not usually given us detailed instructions for how to obtain justice in society. But they have done much more than given us mere vague goals, however laudable these might be. They have set forth certain constant teachings, e.g., that of the just wage or of the social duties and character of private property. They have ruled out certain approaches to solving the social question, e.g., a reliance only upon market forces or upon class warfare. They have likewise rejected both socialism and classical liberalism, which today is often called neo-liberalism. They have indeed sometimes praised experiments in attaining the goal of achieving justice and reducing poverty, but they have set certain limits on those experiments. They have insisted that wages should not be set simply by market forces, they have praised labor unions, they have again and again made it clear that the state has a role to play in the economy and is not simply the “night watchman” state beloved by classical liberals (conservatives or libertarians). And the intermediate groups or bodies which the popes have frequently highlighted as having an important role in regulating the economy are not primarily for-profit businesses or mere voluntary associations. They are bodies akin to the medieval guilds, whose regulations had the force of law and in which membership was compulsory for anyone who wanted to carry on a certain trade or business in a medieval city. In other words, while the popes leave much to circumstances of time or place in implementing the demands of justice, the atmosphere of the social encyclicals is not that of neo-liberal economics. It is much more akin to the social democracy of western Europe than to anything in the United States. In fact, while what seems to be the U.S. post-war economy is singled out for criticism in Centesimus as “the affluent society or the consumer society [which] seeks to defeat Marxism on the level of pure materialism by showing how a free-market society can achieve a greater satisfaction of material human needs than Communism, while equally excluding spiritual values,” what appears to be the West German social market economy is hailed as “a positive effort to rebuild a democratic society inspired by social justice [which tries] to avoid making market mechanisms the only point of reference for social life, and…tend[s] to subject them to public control which upholds the principle of the common destination of material goods”.10

In the beginning of this article I quoted some words of Fr. John Cronin about dissent from Catholic social teaching. After the words that I quoted above, he went on to say:

Such resistance is not unusual when Church teaching conflicts with the strong personal interests of the faithful. All of us have met Catholics who were bitter because of God’s law on divorce or birth control. These persons tend to blame the Church for doctrines they find distasteful, as if the Church originated these decrees, instead of merely transmitting God’s teaching.

It might strike some as odd that Fr. Cronin compares opposition to the Church’s social doctrine to opposition to her teachings about family life. But he is correct to compare the two. In each case the Church is setting forth Christian morality, in one case concerning sexuality and the family, in the other concerning our life in society, especially with regard to our economic activity. And in each case Christian morality is in conflict with powerful drives stemming from our fallen human nature. While Catholics seeking to be loyal to the Church are rightly aware of the need to subject the sex drive to God’s law, they are usually less aware of the need to subject our desires for money and material goods in the same way. But neither drive can be left to rule itself. Holy Scripture is as full of warnings about the dangers of riches and their pursuit as about the dangers of sexual immorality. If we are to be fully Catholic we must recognize both areas of morality and be obedient to Christ’s law as taught by the Church. Otherwise, whatever strategy we may adopt to justify ourselves, we will in fact be dissenters from Christ’s teaching rather than faithful Catholics.

Footnotes

(Baltimore, 1965), 168.

“Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: An Unresolved Tension,” paper delivered at the Austrian Scholars Conference at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 2002, 4. The entire paper is (or was) available at www.mises.org/asc/2002/asc8-woods.pdf.

183 Comments

– I wish you could edit comments here.
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What I neglected to explicitly mention, as I was trying to give a simple overview – though it is more or less an obvious follow-on, is that just within those areas of production, consumption and exchange I mentioned there numerous subsections of the economy that immediately fall under the remit of Christian teaching. Technology, economic organisation including structure, size, locality and so forth, remuneration and working conditions, production and trading standards, environmental concerns and nature, urban and rural planning; all of these will automatically be subject to the scope of Christian teaching.
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What is left for this ‘secular’ and independent economic discipline of the Austrians(I haven’t forgot it hasn’t been proved that even here we should pay more attention to the Austrians than the Neoclassicals or the Post-Keynesians or the (old) Institutionalists or even the Marxists/Socialists.)? All I can envision is the most perfunctory theories about how, given the circumstances, prices or interest or whatever will actually be formed and which is nothing like this massive attempt at the colonisation of all of economic defined broadly.

Indeed such concerns not just come under the banner of economic, broadly defined. They colour, basically, all of it. Yes, as I said, you might be able to give a ‘descriptive’ view of price of formation that is largely ‘secular’ and ’empirical’, but when one wants to look at economics with any depth and scope they will immediately come up against the issues I just mentioned. I just want to make it clear that these are not fringe issues, they are so important to economics that it wouldn’t be much of a discipline without.
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And I probably should have made it clear that God no doubt meant for our work to have an explicit role in the fulfilling of the gifts and purposes he has given us and for the social, cultural and spiritual needs and potentials of society at large. In no sense is the actual content and conditions of work and production a peripheral issue in the Christian view of society and the economy.

I don’t think I have misreprented your position at all. You seem to basically be claiming that Austrian economics, or economics itself, is a ‘secular’, independent discipline beyond the cognizance of Christian morality, theology and philosophy as long as it doesn’t, say, explicitly advocate fornication or murder or what have you.
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This is wrong. If you take the production and consumption of a chair. It is true that up to a point one may able to formulate a largely ’empirical’ and ‘secular’ idea of what a chair’s price will be. However there are areas, still within the boundaries of economics, to do with the chair’s production and consumption that a Christian should not treat in a ‘secular’ or ’empirical character. For instance the chair is produced by men, men made in the image of God with a dignity and with needs, gifts and purposes like creativity and social, intellectual and spiritual needs, that God gave them to pursue. The Christian should ask if those involved in the production of the chair are treated with dignity, if their gifts are not hampered by their job and indeed if that job, which they will spend a good deal of their lives doing, actually helps to further this dignity and these purposes and gifts because spending such a proportion of their lives on something almost entirely ‘neutral’ in this regard is to conspire against the fulfillment of the rest of their intellectual and spiritual capacity. Then the Christian should ask how the production, exchange and consumption of this chair effects the rest of society and its ability for social, cultural and spiritual fulfillment. All of this can come under the remit of an economic broadly defined, hence the idea that Austrian economics is somehow a doctrine autonomous as long as it doesn’t advocate explicit immorality(though the immorality of usury and greed and such is curiously forgotten.) is incorrect.

A final point. In a recent article Dr. Woods suggested that the Distributists err by demanding that the economic science reckon with moral issues: “This, I think, is one of the places where Distributists commit an error. They are indicting economics in general and the free market in particular for not doing what they were never intended to do. The market does not prevent people from using their wealth badly; nor does it possess a built-in limit on the amount of wealth that someone can acquire. Neither does the discipline of economics itself have anything to say about these matters, which properly belong to moral philosophy.” Dr. Woods misses the point here at several levels.

1) Distributists don’t attack economic science generally; they attack the value-free perversion of economics while defending its integrity as a science subordinate to ethics. They don’t deny economic law; they refuse to concede that man should be crushed by abstract and rationalist economic law, the way he is crushed by the law of gravity, should he find himself under a falling rock! For Distributists, economic law is, as we have seen, fundamentally subordinate to moral law, which is the supreme law in all fields — including economics — in which human free will is the operative principle.

2) They don’t demand that the free market provide moral constraints; they in fact concede that the free(-for-all) market provides nothing of the sort, and this is in fact one of its flaws!

3) They don’t demand that an individual man be told what to do with his wealth. They demand that moral limits be observed in the workings of the economic order. So if there is in fact an inviolable moral right for a man to possess private property, then a system that deprives most of an opportunity to own productive property because of its tendency, in the name of the almighty “free market,” to concentrate that property, is a system which violates the moral law. And no lengthy dissertation about efficiency and productivity can change the fact that if the right of all to possess private property is a fundamental moral tenet of the Catholic economic position, then an economic system which facilitates the continual violation of that moral tenet must bend to the moral law itself.

4) Finally, Distributists don’t demand that there be a limit to the amount of wealth that a man can make (I made this point in my original reply to John Clark; certainly Dr. Woods missed it, and he is not intentionally ignoring the issue). They demand that there be a limit to the concentration of income-generating property into so few hands that most others be compelled to work for a wage rather than with their own share of productive property. It’s an essential distinction (I realize I’m repeating myself), and one which Belloc makes quite clearly in Economics for Helen: between wealth for consumption and wealth for future production (i.e., capital). If a family is to sustain itself securely and independently, it has a right to some sufficiency in possession of the latter.

For the deposit of truth entrusted to Us by God, and Our weighty office of propagating, interpreting and urging in season and out of season the entire moral law, demand that both social and economic questions be brought within Our supreme jurisdiction, in so far as they refer to moral issues. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno)

This is EXACTLY what Woods and the other Austrian economists deny and thus state the Sovereign Pontiffs to be mistaken!

And what you seem to deny, David, is the underlying moral aspect of human action. Are we or are we not moral beings? If so, how can we say economics is a moral-free science, to the extent of leaving ethics out? How the workings of the economy, that doesn’t fall under ethics. What economics OUGHT TO BE, that falls under ethics!

Austrian economists do not keep to that; they extend the moral-free character of economics to say unregulated competition is good, price gouging is fine (at least Woods); they are really moralizing that any kind of regulation is bad, and that being a Scrooge is virtuous and helpful to the common good. If you tell me that doesn’t fall under morality, then all I can say is you’re flat wrong.

And you’re definitely misrepresenting me and the other Distributists; none have ever said all economics is morality, but they do say that whenever economics involves relations with other humans, the Catholic moral law needs to be obeyed. The Austrian capitalists flatly deny this, and the evidence shown here already proves it, your denials notwithstanding. You just don’t seem to understand many of the key tenets of the Austrian capitalists are liberal tenets and condemned by the Popes.

Wessexman: You’ve already misrepresented my position (and ignored my request to clarify that misrepresentation) once and since you continue to do so, I think I’ll bow out of trying to explain any further wherein you seem to be in error. God bless.

“David: I think you missed my point, probably my fault. In reference to your first paragraph, I specifically stated: “[An Austrian] would probably throw in something about the speed of the market’s reaction to new demand.” Please do read what I bother to type.”
Paul, if you give a wrong or misleading answer, then throw in something that is less wrong or misleading (and suggesting that the issue is ‘speed,’ per se, still seems misleading), it is still the case that your whole answer is wrong. So now I suppose I could request that you actually bother to read what I bother to type…but I won’t. ;)

For now I’ll just respond to Paul:
Paul, do you understand that an ‘Austrian’ like Woods does NOT claim that ALL things ‘economic’ are amoral, but rather that there IS a level at which economic interactions can be empirically studied, i.e., strictly in terms of the causal laws governing them, i.e., prior to getting into a morally loaded discussion about how to implement holistically *good* economic policy? You seem to write as if you do not.

David you are wrong and indeed putting the matter much too strongly. In the abstract there are some things which can be studied in simply their horizontal causality, one can say that if I drop A it will fall through gravity to the floor. However this ignores vertical causality and the hierarchical and symbolic nature of reality, every corporeal object is formed through the imprint of the higher levels of reality upon Materia Secunda. If you take anything of any scale or scope, particularly in the humane sciences it is then just not true you can rule vertical causality and hence the importance of (ontological) symbolism and Christian metaphysics. This is how you ended up with evolution; the removal of any idea of vertical causality left evolution, which is simply the naturalistic and horizontal account of the origins of species, as the only reasonable viewpoint.
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You are trying a sleight-of-hand, you are taking the real but limited role of horizontal causality and corporeal and physical objects and extending this to produce whole doctrines and humane sciences based upon this. This is illegitimate. There is certainly no room to say all man’s economic dealings are free of the impress of higher levels of reality and hence beyond the mere corporeal focus of the likes of the Austrians. But even when an area of study can be said to be only concerned with the corporeal and/or the physical then that does not mean it can simply stand alone. It needs to be integrated into our understanding of the rest of reality and this means arranged, assessed and framed by symbolism and Christian metaphysics. So even if you were correct about the initial scope of independence for economics you’d be wrong to say that would allow it to escape the kind of judgment the distributists would give it.

“You can ignore plain facts if you like, but the sphere of causal relations (if A then B) can indeed be studied without reference to more ultimate spiritual realities.”

No? So basically, you’re saying, David, the Church has no business saying economics is subordinate to Christian ethics? If so, then no wonder we’re diametrically opposed. And if no, what are you saying? Economics is the science of human choices, choices that affect everything around us. Why SHOULD NOT ethics govern economics?

David: I think you missed my point, probably my fault. In reference to your first paragraph, I specifically stated: “[An Austrian] would probably throw in something about the speed of the market’s reaction to new demand.” Please do read what I bother to type.
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Subduing the efficiency of the market to the fellowship of the community is inherently a value judgment. To base an entire country’s economic system on a value judgment that stands as a positive refutation to pure materialism is one that inherently considers morality to be the driving factor in daily life. Citing Mondragon is quite meaningless because it exists inside a capitalist system, and thus its employees operate in capitalist environments regardless of their “day job.” I can say nothing of their morality because I don’t know their motives for working at Mondragon. On the other hand, I feel that I can say something of an entire state that subjects every aspect of its life to an inherently sluggish – yet measured and controllable – economic ideal.
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An Austrian can have a clear set of morals. Austrianism cannot. That is the difference I’m attempting to convey. Totally free market forces, followed precisely, act to meet any demand placed upon it. I would disagree that Austrians would say that speedily meeting market demand is not a moral endeavor, I would actually say that they consider it the only endeavor that actually is moral. I’m certain I can find quotes of Mises to back this up if you want, although it would take time that I am short on at the moment.
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Referring to parents selling their daughters – ironic that you point to Austria as the location of the crime. In any case, as I said, it is a free-market mentality. Individual humans have no inherent value in an Austrian universe. Distributism grants that individuals deserve at least the least capital necessary to survive freely with minimal outward dependency. One is hardly free when acting as a sex-slave, much less are they an owner of capital.
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One way to revert to a more Distributist society would be the differential tax. There are articles on this site about it.
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I’m sorry this response is rushed and not well organized, I’m lacking in time at the moment. I hope someone else here will pick up some of my slack. When it comes to a Distributist “utopia” I am probably the least of the resident experts, since I personally have rejected that notion in favor of a blend of socialism, distributism, and free-market capitalism. With that said, your questions as they relate to pure Distributism would be better directed to those who enjoy arguing on its behalf on this site.

“You say distribution of goods and services, but to whom? Those with power…” – No, I don’t think so; isn’t the answer: “to everybody”? Can you explain? My understanding is that the market supposedly functions to meet demand; power becomes concentrated in the market because some people are better at meeting demands: in theory, at least, everybody is able to work and everybody is able to vote (to create demand and to reward those who satisfy their demands) with their dollars, just as they can vote for their governments or union leaders, etc.
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“There is nothing inherently moral about efficiently supplying a given demand.” – That’s obviously true, but the Austrians don’t claim otherwise, so… And surely, they also do not claim that economic relations are the only ones, or the most important ones.
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It seems to me that you simply haven’t answered my question: how it is that distributism, as an economic model, has clear ‘moral codes,’ whereas the Austrians don’t and can’t – what does that mean? Obviously an Austrian qua Austrian does not have a clear moral code, since his ‘Austrianism’ doesn’t deal with morals; but qua Christian, the Austrian can certainly have just as clear a moral code as the rest of us, can’t he?
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Your second, larger paragraph seems to illustrate the worry that I’m sure a lot of people have: this seems very utopian, i.e., way out of touch with reality. (1) Is the Mondragon corporation ‘distributist’ or not? I thought this was a paradigm case. I believe I read that it was the seventh largest corporation in Spain – so why the talk of “micro-corporations”? What does that mean?
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(2)”You could set up a whore-house business, I suppose, but it would be subject to the scrutiny of the village in which it resided, and the local girls would be the daughters of neighbors and friends.” First, is there any reason why being subject to scrutiny is not now possible? (My understanding is that parents are the ones who, as often as not, sell their daughters. Have you heard about the latest case of long-term abuse coming out of Austria? “The worst parents” are much worse than you suggest.) Anyway, second, how does embracing distributist economic principles translate into ‘everyone will be a local (i.e., there will be no more sex-trafficking of non-locals, since…?)’? How is that even remotely realizable in the real world – as the result of embracing a particular economic model?? How is that radical reorganization of society (of human nature) supposed to follow from embracing distributist economic principles? (No more large cities, just small villages? Really??) If workers own the companies they work for, how does that translate into knowing each other better, or into being less inclined to lascivious behaviour? Are the 80000 Mondragon employees, in general, morally superior individuals? Are their communities less saturated by porn, have the people become less consumeristic/materialistic, etc.? Has anybody actually looked into this?

David: I agree that efficiency would be along the lines of the Austrian answer. The problem is, efficiency of what? You say distribution of goods and services, but to whom? Those with power, but what kind? The money kind. So: the efficiency of the distribution of goods and services to those with money…somehow I doubt an Austrian would still agree. They would probably throw in something about the speed of the market’s reaction to new demands. However, again, a new demand can be the booming hit-and-run market for all we know. There is nothing inherently moral about efficiently supplying a given demand.
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Distributism, because its markets are small yet its regulation (relatively) large, is able to police its markets quite easily in accord with local laws and norms. Austrian economics allows for international corporations far more powerful than state governments, governments who only operate locally and are likely to possess inferior technology and power. This leads to an environment we can see today, where human rights violations such as trafficking and sex slavery can and do become a very Austrian market. Even in the absence of regulation, Distributist micro-companies are inherently more personal, where everyone knows everyone else. You could set up a whore-house business, I suppose, but it would be subject to the scrutiny of the village in which it resided, and the local girls would be the daughters of neighbors and friends. Such behavior grates against the morality of even the worst parents, friends, and daughters. Distributism subverts the “efficiency” of the Austrian school to the fellowship of the community, a decidedly moral judgment that would (and does) permeate local communities we see today. It’s no accident that lascivious behavior – for example – is commercialized in large cities where neighbors are nameless, and increasingly absent as communities shrink and become more personal.

Andromedus:
I too have found your comments thought-provoking.
“Efficiency assumes a goal, but if economic forces are universal (as Austrians suggest) and inherently amoral, then there can be no goal, and thus efficiency is meaningless. Without morality, no economic philosophy can define a goal by which it is “the most efficient at obtaining” without that goal being completely arbitrary and thus changeable. Distributists have the advantage of having a clear set of moral codes that are not arbitrary and that are universal – this is one of the irrefutable points that no Austrian can ever win.”
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It seems to me that ‘profit’ is not the right answer to what is being aimed at ‘economically,’ but rather ‘efficiency’ is supposed to be relative to the production and distribution of goods and services. (Is that a naive view?) I’m curious how it is that distributism, as an economic model, has clear ‘moral codes,’ whereas the Austrians don’t and can’t – what does that mean? What would you say, for example, about the possibility of a whore-house being run on distributist principles? Would that be impossible for some reason?

Thank you DAVID for bringing some sense back into an increasingly self perpetuating empty sounding repetition.
I am one of those scientists with a special calling and find it somehow irritating when a certain stubborn righteousness tries to supersede intelligence.
Prof. Dr. C. Graf W.Bartak

“‘Know thyself’ meant know the true nature of our being and the true nature of reality. It is you who are saying we should ignore the spiritual and higher sides of man when it comes to economics. Your comment is highly ironic.”
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Is that what I’m saying, Wessexman? Where, praytell? May I suggest that part of what *you* need to know about yourself is that you are a human being and as such you are prone to treating the positions of those with whom you disagree unfairly.
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You can ignore plain facts if you like, but the sphere of causal relations (if A then B) can indeed be studied without reference to more ultimate spiritual realities. You say: “I maintain that throughout any ‘science’, humane or even natural, there must be a constant arranging, assessing and framing of ‘technical’ and ‘empirical’ information through Christian metaphysics and (ontological) symbolism.” This is stated much too strongly and as it stands is obviously false. The physicist qua physicist or the doctor qua doctor or the grammarian qua grammarian concern themselves only with their particular art/science. Each of these qua Christian must also be concerned with “Christian metaphysics and symbolism,” etc., but the latter concern cannot and does not constitute a pervasive norm for what each does within his own respective field, and will often have but a remotely tangential bearing on what he does. This is the reason why the Church is careful to restrict the reach of her authority to matters pertaining to faith and morals. The Church does not intend this to be a merely formal restriction, with an implied rider stating that all arts and sciences are profoundly and intrinsically within the domain of faith and morals. I think this point is indisputable from a Catholic standpoint, and insofar as Augustine might have suggested otherwise at certain times, he was mistaken.

Thank you for your friendly remarks for us distributists. As for your query, I don’t know how much you’ve read in distributist writings, either on the DR or elsewhere. You’re probably aware of the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain, large-scale industrial manufacturers. In the town where I live, Westerville, Ohio, there is hardstore and Honda dealership which is employee-owned. But probably financing would be harder to get for such enterprises. You might want to read Race Mathews book, Jobs for Everyone,for more about what he calls “developed distributism.”

As for your other points, about materialism, for example, I agree with you, and in fact that argument has been made here at the DR and elsewhere too.

But thank you for your comments which I know are given in a generous spirit.

Okay, I should have stressed I meant your analysis of economic and society seems to be very materialistic. Capitalism has provided a good way of satisfying our material needs. However it is not necessarily the only way of satisfying those needs, indeed the absolute requirements of those needs are quite low. Much of the Third World, before it became enthralled by the West, could actually provide these basic requirements, no matter what sort of comments are made about what they think of the US now. Just because today many are taken in by advertising and Hollywood, after their old cultures have been invaded and weakened through the aid of their own elites, does not decide any absolute comparison.
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However that is not to say that there is no room for a better satisfaction of material needs than these societies have managed. Distributism can do that. It can’t do it as well as capitalism perhaps, but capitalism carries with it an attack for the higher level of man and society; his social, cultural and spiritual needs. Distributism, as sluggish in fulfilling material needs as it might seem to the most starry-eyed technophiles and growth-fetishists groupies of capitalism, could not only be extremely good, historically speaking, at satisfying our material needs, but also allows, and even gives all encouragement a social and economic system can, to the satisfaction of these higher needs.
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Your moral viewpoints are admirable. But our spirituality does not cease at the doors of economics and sociology.

If a year from now, the economy was as bad as it is now (or worse), I would vote for our current president
over whatever opposition he has, IF he advocated,espoused and promoted the values I hold dear
(Pro-Life, anti-abortion, anti-embryonic stem cell research, anti same -sex marriage,anti-pornography).
Does this sound like someone who shows little but a materialistic way of looking at the economy and society? If you saw how I choose to live(what kind of car I drive etc.-how much I give to charity) you would not have that opinion.I live a very simple lifestyle. Capitalism is not he be – all or end all but it is not (if it works properly) an economic plague either.As far as standard of living, It would be interesting to ask the residents of what was formerly Rhodesia their opinion on this.

From the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world of the Second Vatican Council
The foreshadowing of the new age

We are warned indeed that a man gains nothing if he wins the whole world at the cost of himself. Yet our hope in a new earth should not weaken, but rather stimulate our concern for developing this earth, for on it there is growing up the body of a new human family, a body even now able to provide some foreshadowing of the new age. Hence, though earthly progress is to be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ’s kingdom, yet in so far as it can help toward the better ordering of human society it is of great importance to the kingdom of God.
The blessings of human dignity, brotherly communion and freedom – all the good fruits on earth of man’s co-operation with nature in the Spirit of the Lord and according to his command – will be found again in the world to come, but purified of all stain, resplendent and transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father an eternal and everlasting kingdom: “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.” On this earth the kingdom is already present in sign; when the Lord comes it will reach its completion.

I greatly enjoyed your posts Andromedus, particularly the first paragraph of the second post. I very much agree. It makes no sense to me that Christian pro-capitalists would actually try and make the same sort of sloganeering arguments about the material outputs of capitalism that others make.(‘Capitalism has created the greatest standards of living’, ‘capitalism has improved the lives of the most people’, ‘capitalism has created the most prosperity’ and so on.) Man does not live by bread alone. Capitalist must be assessed as a whole and not just for the increase in consumer goods it has brought(as secure or unsecure as this wealth may be for many individuals at the moment.). Social, cultural and spiritual elements, as well as the material side of life, are all important.
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Your second paragraph in that comment brings up a fascinating area. From my own experience there seems to me no set radical-‘ness’ to distributists. By this I mean it is hard to gauge just how decentralised, agrarian and traditional is the vision that various distributists have in mind for their reforms. It would interesting to see some more work done to clarify the various differing perspectives amongst distributists on this topic. Coca-Cola is a very large company, which trades a mass-produced, heavily advertised, consumerist product all over the world. Whether it could ever be a model for distributism, under the worker ownership banner, would depend upon just what one’s vision is for distributism.
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Geprge; ‘If anyone takes that I value material success over religious spiritual values then you have judged me wrong. ‘
You have shown little but a materialistic way of looking at the economy and society. You are still talking about ‘living standards’ as if the increase in consumer goods was the be-all-and-end-all of society and the economy. Distributists agree that a good material life is not contrary to a good social, cultural and spiritual life. Indeed up to a point, if it is fulfilled in a certain way it helps to further these. However you have only given the implication of judging capitalism, and science, according to the most hyper-materialist and hyper-congratulatory way.

@Adromedus”Efficiency assumes a goal, but if economic forces are universal (as Austrians suggest) and inherently amoral, then there can be no goal, and thus efficiency is meaningless. Without morality, no economic philosophy can define a goal by which it is ‘the most efficient at obtaining’ without that goal being completely arbitrary and thus changeable.”
Wouldn’t most economists/businessmen/industrialists say that the goal was profit? By itself, not the best
goal I would agree. Also as far as efficiency being meaningless, I would venture that the most efficient
economies being the United States and Germany has some meaning to it. (Notice that Germany is the one having to bail out and rescue the rest of Europe).

As far as the inherent difficulties you mention in implememnting Distributism, today, you bring up
some valid points.As far as how large government has grown in the world, along with powerful central banks
and multi-national corporatism, would what we have today even be recognized as capitalism as envisioned by Adam Smith or Van Mises or Locke or a whole host of others one could name?

I would agree that had the Distributist model had been in place in the Western economies from the late nineteenth century onward, the result would have been better than what we see now. I would like to read an analysis of the relationship between our consumerist society, Hollywood values and the decline in spiritual/moral /religious values in western society though. From what I have read on him, Padre Pio railed against the development and influence of television because of what he saw was the bad effect it was having on society.
The thing is, we have the economic system in place that we have now. Yes, the government is irresponsibly borrowing against the future and printing money to help finance it and this is definitely not good.
I’ll posit that if western man had maintained a strong religious faith, even our deficient capitalist system would function much, much better. One can certainly wonder if this is even possible from this point onward though though. Although if we Catholics as a whole were more fervent in our Faith, good things can and would happen.

How much is the decline in our spiritual/ethical/moralvalues due to the capitalist system that has developed and we have in place now? Consumerism does create demand which results in employment. The difference today versus many decades ago,true,is that we now have multi-national corporatism in place. China is doing damage against us with our own model married to the political system they have. Some things today are much worse(and much more complex) than they were in Chestertons day and yet living standards today in his country of England and in other First-World countries are unparalleled in history. Yet in other ways, yes, things were much better then. Going forward, the increasing sophistication of computers and the effect on us and our existence is another challenge that will have to be confronted.

If anyone takes that I value material success over religious spiritual values then you have judged me wrong. I don’t believe that the two are so incompatible that one has to opt for a third world existence or at least a minimally materialistic lifestyle either. Also, my faith, when it comes to politics, impels me to vote for the Pro-Life (anti-abortion, anti-embryonic stem cell research anti same -sex marriage) candidate over the alternative because yes I believe there is a connection between faith and values and how well society and the economy functions. I must say I fear a Nancy Pelosi or a Kathleen Sebelius much more than an Austrian school economist.
Are there are problems in the sciences such economics and even physics that have yet to be answered or resolved? Is this something new? No. May man’s intellectual curiosity continued to be challenged.

As no one has answered my previous post, I will advance my opposition (albeit as a sympathizer) and see if anyone cares to take notice.

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To me, it seems that an effective way to consider Distributism is through a case study. Writers of this site may consider this a challenge; I consider it a litmus test.

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Let’s say we were to wake up tomorrow in a Distributist world with all of the technologies of today previously invented. In that world, I have a novel idea: I want to manufacture and sell a contraption that consists of a stepper motor attached to a set of frames that holds a mirror, which then reflects the sun into the window of a nearby house. The purpose of the invention is to reflect sun into the house in order to provide cheap heating in times of cold, and can be used in any home and garden anywhere. The mirror and motor are attached to a small computer that calculates the sun’s location based on geography and time, and the desired place where the light is to be directed (the window) is programmed in as well so that the exact angle that the mirror needs to be at any time is known by the computer, which then informs the motor (or motors being that there would likely be one for each axis) on what to do. Essentially, it’s a solar tracker attached to a mirror, except that it keeps the sun reflected onto one point as opposed to tracking the sun only.

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Now with my novel idea, I need to acquire various items. I will need stepper motors, a microcontroller, a computer, software that is able to perform these calculations, a highly reflective surface, and a particular hinged frame for mounting and movement, along with various wires, screws, bolts, etc. How do I go about acquiring high quality stepper motors in a Distributist world? Is it the motors guild? The electronics guild? The assembly-line guild? Do all of these offer stepper motors, or none of them? Moving on to the reflective surface, I need a medium that will reflective the most solar radiation possible, not just visible radiation. This kind of material is special. Which guild offers it? Is it the reflective surfaces guild? The solar applications guild? Is it even likely that any guild offers highly reflective surfaces?

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Assuming I am able to obtain all of the items I need, I still face the issue of assembly and programming. Who is going to program the software to track the sun? The celestial guild? The celestial programming guild?

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The problem that we seem to run into is that the more specialized the need, the less likely the guild is to exist that provides it. Because no guild’s market is allowed to be bigger than the local economy, we are likely to see repeats of guilds multiplied over and over again across the land, but the increasingly complex guilds will not be supportable by local economies because their wares are too specialized and thus require large geographic markets to exist at all. A small town in Alabama is no more likely to possess a highly reflective surfaces guild than a small town in New York, Texas, or anywhere. Thus these kinds of goods wouldn’t exist at all, because a local market cannot support them.
Which brings me to another problem. Is a guild’s market size based on geographical or population considerations? If it is geographical, then the incentive will be for people to congregate so that they can acquire more advantaged technologies, and indeed market them to others. However, massive congregation is opposite the spirit of Distributism, so I find this hard to believe. It must, therefore, be based on population, and therefore it will always be harder for a technologically advanced idea to be producible in a Distributive society than it would be otherwise – small-population markets cannot support high technology goods, or goods that are heavy in R&D and other capital investments. Those investments cannot be recuperated in small populations.

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Can anyone envision a world in which a Distributist society built a nuclear power plant? For that matter, what would be the role of a transportation guild if they couldn’t transport you past their allotted local community? How could airlines operate at all being that they are inherently non-local? The same can be said for electricity, which may be dispersed hundreds of miles. And still the question continues for the internet – how on earth could a writer’s guild remain local with free and instant communication? What of satellites, their locality is in orbit, who do they serve? Does every hamlet require its own satellite? Is each cellular company allotted one cellular tower (or perhaps five) and no more?

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I am a Distributist sympathizer, but I don’t believe that these questions have been sufficiently answered. And the answer cannot be “the government will handle affairs x, y, and z” because there isn’t a single item I’ve listed that is not currently manufactured by competing businesses today, and those cop-outs would merely show that Distributism is another word for a massive government reigning over millions of micro-farms, and I’m quite certain that isn’t the goal.

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I would enjoy an honest answer to as much of the above as anyone is willing to bite off.

Further, Distributists really should seize more readily on the fact that Capitalism (including the Austrian sort) leads to a purely consumerist/materialist mentality. More regular (non-fanatical) types would be far more willing to put down the Austrian school and consider Distributism if they understood that the Austrian school is fundamentally at odds with conventional morality. Distributism should not market itself as necessarily the most efficient form of economy, because that argument is itself totally nonsensical. Efficiency assumes a goal, but if economic forces are universal (as Austrians suggest) and inherently amoral, then there can be no goal, and thus efficiency is meaningless. Without morality, no economic philosophy can define a goal by which it is “the most efficient at obtaining” without that goal being completely arbitrary and thus changeable. Distributists have the advantage of having a clear set of moral codes that are not arbitrary and that are universal – this is one of the irrefutable points that no Austrian can ever win. The Austrian school is a prescriptive and not only a descriptive philosophy, although they commonly attempt to smokescreen that fact with tangential descriptions that can derail an argument, and this is particularly useful against a philosophy as overtly prescriptive as Distributism. Luckily for us, the Austrian school’s founders made no such attempts at illusion.

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My questions for Distribustism are fairly simple. It seems clear to me that Distributism (as I now infer it to mean) is unlikely to advance at the same purely technological rate as free Capitalism. I cannot prove this, but the reason that I believe it instinctively is because it will always be more difficult to acquire the capital necessary to attempt a novel idea when one must obtain the capital, the input, and the vote of a large conglomeration of people. Capitalism can do everything Distributism can, but it gets to skip the debate and vote that a clunky Distributist “guild” would run into every step of the way. To this dilemma I have two solutions: Either the guild can elect a body of representatives who do this work for them (as a miniature government of sorts) who then run for a term before re-election, and who are re-elected based on their performance in operating the business venture. I am curious as to in what way this is inherently anti-Distributist (since it is very close to the way many companies are run already). Or, someone who wished to acquire capital and start a new business could market their idea and fish for investors who would then fund them through buying “shares,” which would pay a derivative of profits, and thus the shareholders would relinquish their say in the decision-making process (to a degree to be determined by the body) and in that way entrust their capital to the genius of the entrepreneur. Again, this is basically something we already have today. So, are these forms of business anti-Distributist, and if so, why? If they are not, then Distributists need to make it much clearer that they are not, because at this point I have read plenty of Chesterton and Belloc as well as this site and exactly what kind of business is acceptably “distributive” is still not clear. Shareholders do in fact own the capital on which they work (if they work at a company that they also own shares in); should not these be pointed to as cases in which Distributism is in fact at work? Surely Coca Cola is a clear cut case of Distributism – in fact allowing a company to spring of from nothing largely because of its wide investor base. It may have grown larger and more monopolistic than Distributists like, but that fact aside (which could easily be curbed by various laws) the company is a Distributist success story, is it not? In fact, any company that began small and was financed through many small shareholders is a Distributive success. I would love to know why this is or is not so.

I was raised Catholic, and a few years ago found myself studying the Austrian school. It seemed to me the best answer to the economic question which socialism and capitalism fail to answer. Recently I stumbled upon Distributism and was intrigued and impressed by it (before I knew it was so closely tied to the Catholic church, not that that revelation changed anything for me), and immediately wondered what a conversation between a Distributist and an Austrian would sound like. Happily, a curious google search for a Distributist magazine landed me on this website, which then led to my discovery of debate after debate between Austrian and Distributist. This debate has led me to some questions and some conclusions. They are as follows, with my conclusions first.

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Distributists are still very much finding their voice and learning how to combat some of the most obvious attacks against its thought. It seems to me that too many Distributists fall for the bait that Capitalism has led to an overall increase in the world’s standard of living, so that what we might call the poor in our countries (such as America) are in fact middle class in a truly poor country – that’s the argument. Jobs in America are good, businesses are diverse, and everything is peachy despite the Distributist’s attempt to fix a clock that isn’t broken. The Distributist should immediately counter that if one chooses to inspect Capitalism honestly, one must do so by investigating international Capitalism, which is the only form that exists. It is not American workers who build American goods – the fact (happily ignored by Austrians I’ve read here and elsewhere) is that China produces America’s goods. From the Austrian perspective, the only sensible way to consider the world is as one giant government-less state, which, at the international level, is becoming nearer and nearer the reality (since there is no profit motive for allegiance to a State). China’s labor has historically been at a level comparable to “near slavery,” and it has suffered virtually all of the woes Distributism predicts. The same can be said for sweat shops, mining ventures, and similar industries all over our Capitalist planet that feed the into consumer nations. Pointing to America’s richness means nothing until one points to its exporters’ conditions as well. China is financing America’s debt and holding the Yen down in order to keep demand for its goods high – the direct result of a Capitalist system that cannot possibly consume the goods it produces. Because of this, China must keep demand of its goods high for exactly the reason every critic of Capitalism has lamented – it is so efficient with such low wages that its workers cannot afford the goods it produces at a rate that can sustain the industries and businesses at a pace that keep the nation’s citizens fed and sheltered. The people cannot remedy their situation (with free market forces) because they don’t possess the capital needed to pursue entrepreneurial solutions of the sort the Austrian school would have us believe is the natural order of the universe. The point is not that Capitalism has or has not made America prosper, it’s the impact that Capitalism has had on those at the other end of its tentacles.
CONTINUED

‘Know thyself’ meant know the true nature of our being and the true nature of reality. It is you who are saying we should ignore the spiritual and higher sides of man when it comes to economics. Your comment is highly ironic.

Geprge; You still have your analysis completely back to front. You only talk about the material benefits of corporate-capitalism, while ignoring its, often deleterious, effects on family and social life, cultural life and spiritual life. That people today in the third world want more and more to live like the West is not necessarily an unimpeachable Christian argument for capitalism. It likely has far more to do with the breakdown of their own cultures and societies and, after that, the pull of Western advertisement, whether direct advertisement or in the trash which of Hollywood and the TV Studios, which has induced more and more of the third world to try and imitate the West. To take this as a mark of the obvious superiority of the West and obvious absolute value of capitalism one must make several, I would say dubious, assumptions first. That a Christian would do this and not even consider the non-material(and I’m including consumerism and advertising within this sphere.) sides of capitalism and the West, particularly after reading this comments thread, was why I reacted so aggressively at first. It is to have one’s priorities all back to front.
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It is better if they had a more stable, distributist economic existence and certainly, in many cases, were less of a target for exploitation by the elites of their nations. But before globaised capitalism came to dominate them many third-world poor were actually socially, culturally and spiritually better off. This is precisely because these qualities are not necessarily served by any old, even very efficient, method of serving our material needs. The beauty of distributism is it is based around the correct view of man and his needs(ignoring those little defects that come from preferring the Aristotelian/Thomistic perspective to the less rationalistic and more symbolic earlier Platonic Christian position.), which means the way it serves our material needs not only does not harm the procurement of higher requirements, but in fact best aids that procurement.
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Again you are someone who is talking about economics as if the Austrians or Neoclassicals even know what they are talking about for the most part. I dispute this. Mainstream economics is a shambles.

When the Holy Father is speaking on Economic matters he is not speaking as an economist
any more than when he condemns embryonic stem cell research he is speaking as a biologist.

The economic realm is different from areas of academics in that it concerns the livelihood
and relationship of human beings and so it is a pertiment and appropriate area of concern for the Holy
Father to comment on. It would, I also think,be good for him to comment on the harm that can be wrought by extravagent and reckless spending and borrowing by an irresponsible government and perhaps
that will come.

Some have characterized Economics as more of an art than science but it does contains truth
which we can learn from and should not ignore. The Church can recognize the truth that is in Evolutionary
bology while not accepting everything put forth by it adherents.

Someone mentioned Dale Alquist who I know about because of G K Chesterton(who of course advocated Distributism-this is part where my familarity with the concept came from).

I’m thinking that if Mr. Chesterton were alive today he would still advocate Disrtibutism but he would
have a somewhat different take on its implementation.

I wish I was more familiar with Thomas Woods but I am not and until I am, will not comment on anything
he has said or written. From comments here, I would think he was somewhat in the camp of Milton Friedman
economics wise.

If you will let me have the last word, I will just point out that you’ve obviously ignored what I wrote, and responded to me as if I had written the opposite of what I did write. You would do well to review the matter, see that this is so, and ask yourself why. Again: “know thyself” is indispensable advice here. I truly wish God’s peace and blessings upon you.

So what you consider “overly agressive” argument—whatever that means— justifies Woods’s attempts at character assassination? Does it justify as well his description of Dale Ahlquist, John Medaille and Thomas Storck as “truly some of the most vicious and uncharitable — and, let me say it, doltish — people whose dronings have ever come my way. They are best ignored. They are hopeless.”

Tell me sir, were they all “overly aggressive” too? I will let you have the last word, as this has become a waste of time.

Emre: You told us that from reading Woods you learned that “anything the rich and powerful do to the weak (save murder) is justified and even JUST.” Unless you can provide a quote indicating that that is indeed Woods’ position, I can only believe that that is – materially, at least – a lie (I can certainly find Woods-quotes to the contrary of your claim). So I await correction, but I don’t see anything uncharitable about my pointing this out.

Chris Ferrara: I can only judge from what I’ve read, but when you claim their is no acrimony on your side, based on what you have written I simply find that impossible to believe. You wrote: “Why have you not accused [Woods] of “acrimony”?” – to which the obvious rejoinder is that all I said was: “In an acrimonious debate such as the one that has developed between Woods and his opponents…” Perhaps its worth reflecting on some old advice: gnothi seauton (know thyself)? In any case, your objection to my point about bankruptcy was clearly not to the point. Obviously I’m not interested in your little challenge:”Do you really want to debate the adverse and often catastrophic effects of bankruptcy proceedings with a lawyer who has handled bankruptcy proceedings?” – that debate would obviously not help us to address the question about basic economic principles here, right? If it would help, let’s go ahead and have that debate; if it wouldn’t, why bring it up? I think you’re obviously being overly aggressive, and just maybe, in all humility I must suggest, that kind of approach to disagreement is part of the reason why Woods is ticked off with you. (And again: I’m not trying to proclaim that he is innocent and justified, etc.)

I must say I had only a passing familarity with Distributism and that from quite some time ago many
years back, but having refamiliarized myself with it a little more I agree it is a better way to go. You may disagree but to me but I view it as a better form of capitalism. Within the capitalist system we have here now, there are family owned businesses and enterprises operating on the distributist principle. I’ve seen immigrants come here (even illegally) and prosper in more or less a Distributive model.
Members of auto unions would have been better off if instead of the adverserial relationship with their employers they would have demanded ownwership stake. Certainly, if you look at the situation we have today where stock value has no(or very little) corresponding connection to the underlying value of a company then that is a something which represents a less desirable to a better alternative.
I can’t recall disagreeing with anything I’ve read or become aware of in a papal encyclical. I know there
are many I haven’t read but unless there is one I don’t know about advocating Al Gore’s position on Global warming then I’m OK. (Although even if the Holy Father issued one like that, I would take it seriously given that he has access to perhaps some supernatural knowledge of the matter that others of us don’t).
My thing is,we have to try to work within and improve the system we have now and gradually strive to get the distributive model adopted in. Kind of like how the Catholic church functioned for many years in Poland under a Communist government before that government and system eventually fell.

Poverty: I haven’t seen poverty here equivalent I saw in Mexico(unless you’re counting people who are living under a bridge) although like anywhere there are people in that country doing quite well. We know that there are places in the world which unfortunately and unnecessarily are starving to death.

‘I think you’d do a better job of getting your points across if you didn’t call people names or accuse them of personal failings. Just a suggestion.’

Like St.Athanasius? ;)

I’m as nothing compared to the church fathers, as you well know, but I’m reading my way through them and some, at least, do not shy away from being more aggressive than I have been here and certainly do not shy away from forceful, even personal, insinuations and attacks. There is always a decision that has to made about the tact one takes; I don’t think an aggressive and confrontational approach is always off-limits. I have sometimes been the better for sharp rebukes received. If you are only referring to my last comment(I have not scrutinised previous comments) I didn’t actually call anyone a name or accuse him of a personal failing(though I accused those he was talking about as possibly liking deformity.). I talked about absurd comments, dubious assumptions and liberal arguments. But it is your site and if you think my comments were too aggressive then say I will tone them down.
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However I will not shy from saying that an inability to properly extend one’s spirituality to one’s whole life and view of life is a personal failing. However that doesn’t for a second necessitate that my spirituality is stronger than Geprge’s. The fact I can dialectically and didactically know and lecture on my duties in this regard doesn’t mean I have fulfilled them as God expects. It doesn’t even mean that the core of my spirituality, my relationship with my creator and my personal morality, are as strong as Geprge’s or as strong as God wants them to be. That is a matter for the spiritual efforts of both of us and the judgment of the Lord.
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Geprge; my main point is you are not starting your analysis of economics and capitalism from the correct spiritual and metaphysical position. Everything we do, including in the economic sphere, has its place within a spiritual, hierarchical, symbolic creation. So we must always, always, always assess all human society and life, even economics, through this prism. The material benefits of capitalism you bring up are important, those which are really benefits at least, but they have their place, a limited and lesser place, within a hierarchy of spiritual requirements. The perversion of that hierarchy, as seen in corporate-capitalism, is a dangerous thing. Consumerism is for instance partially the result of placing too much strain on the material side of the economy and society and neglecting the higher aspects. I would also hazard a guess, it is partly a product of the redirection of these higher aspirations at a lower level; the lust for consumer goods being used to try and fill the gap that social, cultural, moral and spiritual activities once filled. If you start from the wrong first principles, the wrong perspective, then you are building your analysis on sand.

Geprge, you would be surprised to see many Americans suffering comparable (even equal) horrors as other people in the world, living below the poverty line. You’re just insulated from it, as many of us are, to tell the truth.

Quite right Mr . Stork. If you want to argue(maybe you don’t) that Capitalism along with responsible union activism and meaningful(though as minimal as necccesary) government intervention makes for a pretty good economic system then I will accede to that. Until we see some “destributist” system (as you would like to see it) in place somewhere to judge it on its efficacy and merits then I will hold in reserve any advocacy I might have toward it. I’m not from Missouri-you know the “show me” state, although some of my familial predecessors were.
As far as Mexico, I have been there and seen its poverty and I would much rather be poor here (if what constitutes poverty here can even be said to be that
vis-a-vis places in the world where there exists real poverty). Anyway, I’ve observed Mexicans in my own community and I’m shocked at how well some of them are doing.(And how quickly they got to that point.)
I’m not envious-I’m quite impressed really.

I think you’d do a better job of getting your points across if you didn’t call people names or accuse them of personal failings. Just a suggestion.

Geprge,

Most of the improvements you mention were brought about either by government action or by union pressure. They had nothing to do with capitalism, still less with a free market.

People come to this country for many reasons. In the case of Mexicans, their economy has been seriously damaged by NAFTA. Many would prefer to stay where they are rather than leave family and friends, provided that they could earn a living in their homelands.

But in any case, our discussion should be around what the Church teaches and has always taught in her social doctrine.

I have never said that the Church condemns capitalism, if we take the definition which Pius XI gives of it in Quadragesimo Anno. The Church does condemn free market capitalism. On the other hand, the Church also does not mandate capitalism. A highly regulated form of capitalism could be acceptable to Catholic doctrine, but it would be inferior to distributism for many reasons. I’ll mention just one. Such a highly regulated form of capitalism would require a much larger state apparatus to regulate it than would distributism.

Ad Hominum attacks run counter to Christian principles
also but I admit I do have an intellectual allergy to “deformity” in economic arguments(or someones “enlightened” interpretation of certain papal encyclicals). Look,I’m one of twelve children and I did grow up poor and it didn’t kill me. From what parts I’ve read in Centesimus it does indeed contain criticisms of capitalism but I don’t quite read it the way some others do. Capitalism has its flaws but where else are we to go? Do you possibly think that John Paul II was, besides addressing
what he had to say to Catholics individually and especially to Catholics who are in the economic and financial hierarchy was even more so addressing those in charge of the economic systems in some of the predominately Catholic countries, far too many which violate the principles he was espousing in the encyclical. On the other hand,I don’t see that some of the Northern European protestant countries have all economic answers either. When Pope Leo wrote his encyclical, it’s important to remember that we did not have child labor laws, the 40 hour work week, social-government and private guaranteed retirement,
employer funded medical care and a whole host of other advancements due in no small measure to economic progress brought about by capitalism.

Geprge’s comments are absurd and packed with so many dubious assumptions, but I think they can be basically dealt with by Plato’s comment that some men like deformity. That people choose to come to the US is not important if the US is based on a consumerist society run counter to Christian principles. His whole argument is liberal.

As a so-called “rad trad,” I defend the social teaching of JP II as vigorously as I do that of Leo XIII. In principle they are identical. And JP II was a highly skilled moral theologian, no matter what one thinks of the Assisi events.

This is not to say that any practical recommendations a Pope may make are binding in conscience, as distinguished from moral principles: e.g. employers of family men have a duty to pay a family wage if they can, versus there should be a minimum wage law.

Geprge wrote, “The Church has adjusted it’s position on the Death penalty and so could likewise do so on economic matters.” The authorities in the Church obviously don’t like the death penalty, but they have never taught that it is intrinsicaly unjust.

And more to the point, there is no sign of any shift in Catholic social teaching. I refer you to my article on Centesimus which is linked to above. Centesimus actually contains some of the most trenchant criticisms of capitalism to be found anywhere in the corpus of social doctrine.

Sorry, but I don’t see the “acrimony” on our side. I have not called Woods a dolt, accused him of child neglect, pettiness, vindictiveness, or spite, nor have I belittled him publicly as “not particularly bright or well read.” I have indeed described his organization as a cult, because I believe that is what it is, and even certain students who have gone down there for summer sessions have made that observation.

Woods has behaved like a churl in this debate from the beginning. Why have you not accused him of “acrimony”?

I certainly haven’t intended to be hard on Emre but rather to offer constructive criticism. I once read something by Peter Kreeft where Kreeft talked about how hard it is to genuinely, honestly, impartially pursue the truth, and nothing but the truth. Emre himself made some good points about ways in which we can create the appearance of pursuing the truth, when really we’re just dressing up tired formulas, without getting to the heart of the matter. In an acrimonious debate such as the one that has developed between Woods and his opponents, it is of paramount importance for each party to endeavor to be scrupulously fair in characterizing the opposing position, as well as perfectly clear in characterizing the grounds for his own position. I hope everybody can see how important this is if you actually want to have a discussion that creates light and not just heat. “What I said was mostly true – so what if I told a few lies?” just doesn’t cut it, especially when we are talking about accusing someone of believing something so patently ridiculous and evil.

-when I say ‘it’ can bring a quantified concern I was paraphrasing a famous scientist(whose name evades me now – it may have Richard Feynman.) who was basing himself, clearly, on the current, quantifying perspective. I wasn’t saying that the data could only support a quantified version of Aristotlian Potentiality, which here presumably meant Materia Secunda, or that is how we should now understand this concept. Anyway it is not particularly important, but it just shows that the idea that the Austrians and Neoclassicals have some sort of right to take anti-Christian positions from a ‘technical’ or ’empirical’ position is dubious. There is room for the ‘technical’ and ’empirical’, but not in creating whole, autonomous and ‘secular’ theories and disciplines.

‘Wessexman: You are obviously passionate and possessed of some erudition, but in general your comments seem over-generalized and too abstract. I think we could have an interesting discussion about this face to face, but while they are interesting, as they stand I’m not able to clearly make out what bearing your comments are supposed to have on the issues before us. It’s the old principles vs. application problem. It’s apparently obvious to you what your principles mean and how they should apply; it’s not to me.’
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This is a comments thread to an article, so I must perforce generalise and abstract. I’ll restate position in general, but more concise terms. Basically you are one of the several people here who have implied, or even just stated, that there are ‘technical’ and ’empirical’ disciplines, and theories of any size or import, that, though they perhaps must not directly contradict Christian doctrine and extrinsic morality, are largely autonomous, self-contained, ‘secular’ fields of study. I reject this, but not from any post-modern grounds, rather for eminently traditional reasons. I maintain that throughout any ‘science’, humane or even natural, there must be a constant arranging, assessing and framing of ‘technical’ and ’empirical’ information through Christian metaphysics and (ontological) symbolism.
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I think the example of economics will work well. Every major area and theory of any size and import in economics should be based in Christian metaphysics and symbolism. You must start with the fact that man is made in the image of God, we are theomorphic, this is the salient fact of human existence alongside the fact we live in the intelligible creation of the Word, Wisdom and Image of God. This foundation alone greatly influences every sphere from prices and production to working conditions and consumption. To try and treat various economic spheres outside Christian metaphysics, theology and symbolism is to desacralise them and to contribute to an attack on holistic Christian spirituality, on the total man. There is nothing post-modern about this because I do not say that one set of symbolism and metaphysics/theology is as good as another. It is eminently traditional to say that, as far as is possible, we must try and understand reality holistically(and more by Intellectus and Symbolism than Ratio, but that is a discussion for a different setting.) and also hierarchically; grasping the chain of being and the dependence of lower levels of being on those that are higher and in the end all the chain on the Trinity.
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As I mentioned before, the Roman Catholic philosophers of Science, Jean Borella and Wolfgang Smith amongst others, show us the mischief that has been caused by ignoring these facts even within the natural sciences like physics and biology(ie the growth and dominance of anti-Christian Scientism.). But clearly such concerns are of equal importance in the humane or social sciences. Wolfgang Smith would argue that these errors have even effected the ‘technical’ and ’empirical’ side of modern physics, for instance the still rampant, if implicit, Cartesianism has left them unable to truly to deal with Quantum Physics, which Smith would have us believe(and I’m no physicist so I cannot give a proper judgment of his efforts.) can be understood within a traditional, realist perspective(and other scientists have noted that it appears to bring a quantified return to Aristotle’s idea of potentiality – but this can have no meaning in the Cartesianised, materialistic and mechanistic mindset which still pervades modern science.).

I hope the irony is not lost on prople like Mr. Stork
that so many are leaving the Catholic countries of Mexico and Central America to come here to this Protestant, Free Market Capitalist country to work and in quite a few cases prosper.

I found it amusing that there were those who were trying to apply Rerum Noverum to the situation in Wisconsin when even after the concessions, the workers up there were still ahead of equivalent Federal emp[loyees which is the “gold standard” where I live.

I think it really comes down to how to apply the principles of the encyclicals to todays world.
The Church has adjusted it’s position on the Death penalty and so could likewise do so on economic matters.

Hey, give poor Emre a break. The gist of his objection is correct. He should have phrased it differently. I didn’t mean to suggest that he was being knowingly unfair. These comments are not peer-reviewed essays!

@David: but that is no excuse for you to caricature his position. All the ad hominem stuff may be true, but you must still love your enemies, and that means you must not tell lies about them, even if they have told lies about you or those you care about.

I reply: This is a fair criticism. But I think the place I may have been sloppy and built stawman or caricature is the quote that Mr. Ferrara and you referenced earlier.

I do not think however that I have caricatured his position in toto at all.

Emre: I truly respect your zeal for souls and your general good intentions, and Woods may be a jerk who is deaf to his critics, as you claim – I’m not here to judge about that – but that is no excuse for you to caricature his position. All the ad hominem stuff may be true, but you must still love your enemies, and that means you must not tell lies about them, even if they have told lies about you or those you care about. The other big problem with this approach to attacking your enemies is, obviously, that you damage the credibility of your cause. If you caricature his position, you actually give Woods – and anybody else interested in the truth – good reason to dismiss your criticism.

@David: It works the same in my jurisdiction of course, and you make a very interesting point. You ask a pertinent and challenging question. If it is true that failure to pay a debt is forgiven with bankruptcy, what exactly is the “big deal” with usury? Is this the thrust behind your question? I don’t want to misread you.

When I said “slavery” I meant something more spiritual and metaphorical, not literal slavery. For many (myself included) the thought of not paying a debt is incredibly damaging spiritually. I notice (and perhaps this is unjust) that the younger generation seems less concerned: walking away from mortgages just because they are under-water etc. I can’t pretend to understand this.

For me however, I would work until I was dead to pay a debt, and bankruptcy I think, while it wouldn’t kill me, would REALLY hurt. It would be BRUTAL, and I have tons of empathy for those who go through it.

Real freedom, true freedom, is found in an independence that does not make us servile. I think we can all agree on this. At least I hope so.

Debt encumbers our freedom severely. It traps us in jobs that may in fact not be where we would best serve society. It prevents us from supporting or taking care of the needs of the Church. It prevents us from saving and building some wealth for our twilight years. It hurts.

Thus it should be avoided.

And it is not good to hurt others. I hope we can agree on this too.

So if I were charging 40% interest on a debt to keep someone indebted forever (or force them to declare bankruptcy) wouldn’t I be doing something unjust?

And if I endorsed a system that encouraged this sort of behavior, wouldn’t I likewise be doing something unjust?

***They get temporarily cut off from access to further credit, but they are allowed to declare personal bankruptcy, and like the debtor in the gospel story, their debts are forgiven (i.e., absorbed by the credit card company, which thus does share in the risk).***

Apparently you are not familiar with either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 proceedings. The idea that debtors just happily walk away from their debts and suffer only a temporary credit moratorium is ludicrous.

Do you really want to debate the adverse and often catastrophic effects of bankruptcy proceedings with a lawyer who has handled bankruptcy proceedings?

So tell me: Does usury exist anywhere in the “free market” today? Has it ever existed? Is there such a thing as usury.

Emre: Presumably we live in different jurisdictions, but where I live, at least, my understanding is that no one goes to jail if they can’t pay their credit card debt. They get temporarily cut off from access to further credit, but they are allowed to declare personal bankruptcy, and like the debtor in the gospel story, their debts are forgiven (i.e., absorbed by the credit card company, which thus does share in the risk). Debtors are certainly not forced to sell themselves and their families into slavery. How does it work in your jurisdiction?

@Christ Ferrara: “Well, we can all be a bit sloppy in these com boxes. That would be a caricature.”

Is it really? Perhaps a little. I apologize.

Here is where I was coming from when I wrote that.

Wood’s defense to the charge I made would be that the two parties “agreed” to the exchange, and therefore nothing would be wrong with it. Yes?

I think that’s a fair observation.

And if that’s true, we have to admit and recognize that there likely to be differences in intelligence, competence, education, etc. between say, a wealthy lawyer working for a corporation and your average poor laborer living in a tenement, yes?

I think that’s a fair observation too.

I would submit that there is a MASSIVE power differential between the two sides in the exchange: the rich take advantage of the poor, and use them, all the time.

David: “I will humbly suggest to you, however, that you may be guilty of just what you complain about. Take this statement: From reading Woods you learned that ‘anything the rich and powerful do to the weak (save murder) is justified and even JUST.’ Let me ask you: if you were face to face with Woods (and let’s pretend Jesus and his mother are there too, maybe even the Holy Spirit – they just might be, after all), would you have the hubris to tell him to his face that this is an accurate characterization of his position?”

I reply: No. I do not agree at all.

David, my first and last name are here and posted. I am not hiding behind a false identity (or a common name). I am who I am, and there is no hiding it. I have had discussions with Dr. Woods on the Amazon website, which began with huge admiration for him when he published “Sacred Then, Sacred Now” and “How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization.” I tried discussing these issues with him via email personally, but I am just a guy with HUGE concerns about what he is doing. He is intent on ignoring his critics. But in conscience I for one MUST speak up.

I notice also that you are here posting in the comments section (anonymously). That is your choice. But I take note that the Distributists here welcome your comments, engage your ideas, and do not censor you. I also notice that Dr. Woods and his supporter Tony Flood (who just ignores emails) post vicious and insulting attacks on the authors here without opening themselves up to either discussion or criticism by keeping comboxes entirely closed, silencing the other side of the debate.

I also notice that you are trying to accuse me of being a hypocrite when I have been nothing if not extremely charitable in my observations.

David, my brother, you and I both know that Jesus is EVERYWHERE. His mother and the Holy Spirit are always watching. Yes, I would challenge Dr. Woods to his face. I feel I am doing the equivalent of exactly that right now. I am deeply deeply concerned about what I perceive as a threat to the good of souls in Dr. Wood’s work. I would challenge him to stop attacking the traditional teachings of the Church on these issues, and I would tell him why: because it is these teachings that set me free, and they have the power to set others free, and he is doing something very very wrong by promoting what he is promoting because if he is successful in convincing others to ignore Distributism and the traditional teachings of the Church, he will prevent them from learning what I have learned: how to be free in Christ.

This is THAT serious. I really think Woods (and Sirico’s) supporters just don’t understand how serious this is. We are talking about experiencing joy in this life, and eternal life in the next, and I think Woods is doing damage to that for many.

In Woods ideal universe, I think we can agree, everyone would recognize Distributism and the Church’s traditional teachings on issues such as usury as “errors” yes? I think that is a fair characterization.

Yet is those “errors” that set me free. They are NOT errors, they are what the Church has always taught, and for EXCELLENT reason.

How can one support the notion that pay day lending, and high credit card rates are just or even good, and still say that they are doing good for people? Its outrageous.

***From reading Woods you learned that “anything the rich and powerful do to the weak (save murder) is justified and even JUST.” Let me ask you: if you were face to face with Woods (and let’s pretend Jesus and his mother are there too, maybe even the Holy Spirit – they just might be, after all), would you have the hubris to tell him to his face that this is an accurate characterization of his position?***

Well, we can all be a bit sloppy in these com boxes. That would be a caricature. What is not a caricature is Woods’s contention that all “market” prices and wages are inherently just so long as no force or fraud was involved in the “agreement.” But “agreement” is a question-begging term. The Austrian view of justice in the market denies Christian teaching on the evil of overreaching in business as an offense against justice—hence the Woodsian defense of price-gouging—or what Leo condemned regarding the overmastering of labor by management in wage negotiations in which labor had zero bargaining power and did not have a chance of receiving a family wage even if the employer could pay it. Regarding wages in particular, Pope after Pope has insisted that an agreement alone cannot insure the objective justice of wages. Woods insists that it does. The Church does not allow the “consenting adult” principle to define what is just or moral. The rejection of the liberal idea that “voluntary agreement” and “justice” are synonymous is as old as Aristotle.

Here is a distinction I think a distributist would draw (from my own poor understanding certainly.. I am not claiming to speak for the Church here)

Usury is defined as loaning money at interest when the lender shares no risk, where the lender charges exorbitant rates, etc. etc. This is very different from the concept of charging NO interest mind you.

Credit card companies do not share risk with the borrower. They can change interest rates at will. They are the crack dealers of the American middle class, and they are CLASSIC examples of usurers.

However, if one borrows money for a business, and the lender accepts the fact that the business may fail and the lender may lose his money, then that is not usury. If the business takes off, and the lender/investor makes 300% profit for his loan, that wouldn’t be usury. It would be shared risk. Usury is sinful by my understanding. Shard risk and profits are not.

At the very least ALL people of good will ought to be able to agree that it wise to avoid usury and unsecured debt and advise men and women to avoid it as well. It wasn’t until I learned that the Church had traditionally taught this that the road to freedom was clear for me. At the very least we shouldn’t wish ill on others.

Emre: Thanks for the comment. It was rather too long, but fortunately it was interesting. ;) I certainly agree with you that “there is a certain hubris that I find off-putting in some of the posts” but I probably would have omitted your parenthesis: “(especially those attacking Distributism)” – and emphasized that it seems to me that most of the commenters here do seem genuinely interested in having a constructive dialogue. I will humbly suggest to you, however, that you may be guilty of just what you complain about. Take this statement: From reading Woods you learned that “anything the rich and powerful do to the weak (save murder) is justified and even JUST.” Let me ask you: if you were face to face with Woods (and let’s pretend Jesus and his mother are there too, maybe even the Holy Spirit – they just might be, after all), would you have the hubris to tell him to his face that this is an accurate characterization of his position?

Vis a vis usury, I think we need to be careful about looking only at papal documents. The Tradition of the Church is much bigger than just encyclicals… Encyclicals themselves are not necessarily infallible in any event.

The article in the old Catholic encyclopedia is sufficiently clear. I think it shows what the sensus fidelium of the Church has always been, and certainly shows what the Church fathers always taught on the subject.

“If you are looking for some sort of papal bulletin on which current interest rates are usurious…” – No, Chris, I think it should have been pretty clear that that is not what I was looking for. What I was looking for was what you would consider to be an objective point of reference, to a relevant authoritative statement from the Church, from which two gentlemen like yourself and Woods could repectfully proceed to defend your respective positions in a (relatively) transparent way.

David: “What you say is not without merit, IMO, but my concern is that it has a vague smell of anti-intellectualism about it, in particular your false dichotomy between, on the one hand, “how to LIVE,” and on the other, how to vote and what we should believe in terms of politics and economics. Such a dichotomy seems clearly antithetical to the spirit of Catholicism (although I do take your point that we shouldn’t become obsessed with the latter).”

I reply: Interesting charge vis a vis anti-intellectualism. You may be correct.

I will admit that I am probably not the most articulate person, but with respect to everyone posting here, there is a certain hubris that I find off-putting in some of the posts (especially those attacking Distributism). Using big words and tossing them about while communicating disdain with those with whom we disagree does not necessarily a strong argument make. Its especially off-putting when done anonymously as this smacks of cowardice to boot. It looks more like young peacocks strutting their feathers for unseen potential mates than anything else. Sorry to be so frank.

To fully understand where I am coming from, first a bit of a bio is in order.

When I was young (I am now in middle age and a father of 3 children thus far) I was a graduate student at Wesleyan University and I studied with a BRILLIANT libertarian. I have more respect for him than I can say, and am eternally grateful to him. For reasons that will become clear, I probably never would have come to Christ were it not for him, and I reject neither him, nor his work. He was my adviser when I wrote my thesis on the public education system, arguing that the only solution to the problems it faced was total and complete privatization. Best teacher I EVER had… EVER.

In writing the thesis (which got me both an “A” and a MALS in social sciences) I did quite a bit of research on economic issues. I read Tom Sowell, Ayn Rand, Chub and Moe, Ravitch, and literally hundreds of books. The finished paper argued (I hope articulately) that the public model of education created tremendous waste and delivered an inferior product. One of my main underlying arguments was a comparison between the cost/effectiveness of private schools (specifically parochial schools) and public schools.

Now, in hindsight, I see my libertarianism as a simple intellectual exercise. I had a formula that would virtually guarantee an “A” on any public policy paper I would write (in any class I took). The formula was this: “The government holds a legal monopoly on the use of force through its policy power and is exceedingly dangerous. Free markets operate without coercion and are therefore nice. The end.” Libertarians are notoriously prolific, and one of the reasons is that their thinking about any issue is already done for them even before putting pen to paper: its just a matter of plugging in supporting data to back up the already decided upon conclusion.

I for one would plug all sorts of data into that formula to produce very sophisticated sounding papers (use big words!!) In hindsight, I find the work of Chesterton, Belloc, and the Distributists far more intellectually satisfying (and interesting) than Austrian economics precisely because the paradigm is Christ and the totality of His Church’s teachings, as opposed to a simple anti-statist model that can be expressed in one sentence.

Anyway, to jump back, on becoming a libertarian I put my money where my mouth was, and quit my public school job to become a teacher at a local Catholic high school. That’s where the fun REALLY started, as I met a wonderful young priest out of Franciscan who started introducing me to Church teaching on things I frankly had never heard about before. Humana Vitae hit me so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. My wife and I became convinced that the Church taught truth about ALL things moral, and we conformed our lives to the teachings of the Church. The Church’s teachings are why my children exists, are why I know my place in the universe, are how I understand my role as husband and father. The faith informs every last aspect of my life, including my intellectual life, again, for what little that is worth.

At the school I had a friend in the religion department (not my department by the way) who was very much concerned with social justice and was a fan of Catholic Worker and Dorothy Day. She and I and my wife had TONS of conversations. I read the entire Bible, the catechism, tons of popular works on the faith, histories of the Church. I read about Dorothy Day. The list goes on and on.

At this point on my own I stumbled across Chesterton and Belloc. I had done my best in making the transition from public to private school, but I had accumulated a TON of debt (easy to do when you take a big pay cut) and really had no clue what exactly was wrong with credit cards. I was SHOCKED when my interest rates starting jumping over 25%. I was in prison. And I had a growing family to provide for. I learned about pay day lending and other challenges the poor were facing from my friend who was an admirer of Catholic worker and actually did work with the poor.

Chesterton and Belloc (and traditional Catholic teaching on the dangers of debt which is also shared by some protestants, like Dave Ramsey) taught me how to live. In comparison to where I was I am now virtually credit card debt free (about 1 year to go!)

This new knowledge was much more powerful than the libertarian thinking was. Libertarianism gave me a way to understand the world and history, but NOT a way to understand the correct way to live. Catholicism gave me that. Furthermore, I learned that Christ loves all of us, and wants us all to be FREE in His truth. Libertarianism was a nice theory. Distributism and Catholicism actually worked in practice!

I wanted to share with others what I had learned about the dangers of usury, about how the Church wants us to be free from servility and other evils. The greatest resistance I receive when I start sharing with people the Good News about structuring one’s financial life in accord with God’s plan has come from libertarians, who seem constantly to want to talk about politics and the old formula, and never want to talk about Jesus, his Church, and Her teachings (which are His teachings by the way)… I have read tons of Tom Woods books. Jesus (and His mother) are nowhere in them (except perhaps the Latin Mass book, and even that one in hindsight has issues).

This process has led me increasingly away from my former libertarianism, which I perceive as a youthful dalliance with a Utopian scheme. Had I remained a libertarian and not discovered Chesterton and Belloc and traditional Catholic teaching on how to order my life economically, I would have lived an impoverished existence, because I would have been seeing the world through a paradigm that, while perhaps verissimiltudinous, really didn’t impart any WISDOM.

Where, in the work of Woods, or Weigel, or Sirico, do we find the teachings of Christ as they apply to how to order our fiscal lives? I have read these people, and my answer is simple: no where. In Woods I have read about why the Latin Mass is superior. Then I read about nullification, I read justifications defending the persecution of the poor, the gathering of extreme amounts of wealth etc. etc., but I read NOTHING that I taught me how to live. I learned only that those who were poor deserved it. If one was in debt with interest rates over 30%, that was just, and that anything the rich and powerful do to the weak (save murder) is justified and even JUST.

Here is what I am trying to say:

Distributism is both practical and proven as a way to structure our lives, and all the libertarians give us (this isn’t meant to be insulting) is a way to think politically and historically. Its a paradigm that is relatively simple, and while verissimiltudinous, not necessarily truthful, because the Truth is found in Christ, and His Church.

This is why libertarians love to pick out specifics like enclosures, or any other issue, and kick it to death in stead talking about the big issues. The formula works best (and sounds most sophisticated) when one can apply it a specific given problem and the data set associated with it. They even call this approach “scientific,” which I find odd. It is as theological a system as any invented by the human mind.

I should add that the states all adopted legal interest rate limits above which usury was deemed by law to occur, but that the credit card industry has used federal law to circumvent state laws and create an empire of usury. Yet another example of how capitalists use the power of the state to exploit people.

**Chris Ferrara: You and Emre raise the issue of usurious credit card lending, which I think is an interesting one. I apologize for my ignorance and for asking you to do my research for me, but would you happen to have handy a recent (as in Rerum novarum-era) point of reference to an official papal teaching from which we can clearly infer the morally illicit nature of usurious credit card lending?***

If you are looking for some sort of papal bulletin on which current interest rates are usurious, I can’t help you. I trust we can agree, however, that revolving rates of 40% on credit cards—requiring 25 years to pay off a $5,000 debt—and 240% on rent-to-own and payday lending are in usury territory. Or are you prepared to say that there is no moral limit on interest whatsoever?

The Church does not issue pocket part updates on her basic moral teaching.

Wessexman: You are obviously passionate and possessed of some erudition, but in general your comments seem over-generalized and too abstract. I think we could have an interesting discussion about this face to face, but while they are interesting, as they stand I’m not able to clearly make out what bearing your comments are supposed to have on the issues before us. It’s the old principles vs. application problem. It’s apparently obvious to you what your principles mean and how they should apply; it’s not to me.

Emre: What you say is not without merit, IMO, but my concern is that it has a vague smell of anti-intellectualism about it, in particular your false dichotomy between, on the one hand, “how to LIVE,” and on the other, how to vote and what we should believe in terms of politics and economics. Such a dichotomy seems clearly antithetical to the spirit of Catholicism (although I do take your point that we shouldn’t become obsessed with the latter).

Chris Ferrara: You and Emre raise the issue of usurious credit card lending, which I think is an interesting one. I apologize for my ignorance and for asking you to do my research for me, but would you happen to have handy a recent (as in Rerum novarum-era) point of reference to an official papal teaching from which we can clearly infer the morally illicit nature of usurious credit card lending?

Wessexman not sure why stated in you post to Donald G. that I intended an “insult” by referencing Distributists as philosphers rather than technical economists. I am more at home with philosophy that economics anyway so if you want to take it as a compliment as you said you do that’s fine with me. I was doing nothing more than attempting to conceptualize Thomas Storcks response to me. no insult intended.

– Sorry I meant to add that ‘deduction'(this is a clumsy word for my meaning because of its rationalist connotations, I’m not referring simply to that sort of ‘deduction’.) therefore should be the constant arranger, assessor and framer of all ’empirical’ facts. It that sense it would wrong to criticise the Austrians and Neoclassicals too much for being ‘deductive’, though ironically true Christian deduction allows a real, necessary and greater place for ’empirical’ observation than these do, to point where you are correct that (old) Institutionalists are far more useful to us than the Austrians or Neoclassicals.

Thomas Storck; If Austrians economics is bad, then Neoclassical economics is awful. The amount of dodgy assumptions and methodology that just goes into their basic microeconomic models of supply and demand to create those pretty curves, like assuming there is only one good and one person, is staggering. At least the Austrians have a few interesting areas, like Hayek’s ideas on dispersed knowledge.
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Can I recommend you take a look at the post-Keynesian economists like Pierro Sraffa, Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor, not to mention the ‘de-marginalised’ Keynes of 1937 onwards. Not only are they fierce and persuasive critics of neoclassical economics, they started and won the Cambridge Capital controversy which basically devastated neoclassical capital theory and hence it theories and justification for returns to labour, land and capital in capitalism, but they dovetail quite well with the other figures and schools you brought up.
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You make a good point about the deductive nature of Austrian and Neoclassical economics. I wouldn’t put the criticism in quite so general terms though. I’d say that first they are usually deductive upon the wrong principles, the wrong metaphysics, the wrong symbolism. Then I’d say they are often deductive when they should be ’empirical’ and ’empirical’ when they should be deductive.(I’m using the term deducitve here broadly and not just in the rationalist sense.)
Take the beginnings of Rothbard’s Man, Economy and State and Mises’s Human Action. In both we are treated to lengthy explanations of individual action. The problem here is not that they ‘deductive’, though there deduction is certainly too rationalist, but that it is the wrong sort of ‘deduction’, not based upon metaphysics and symbolism. Rothbard begins by saying ‘The distinctive and crucial feature in the study of man is the concept of action’, whereas the real distinctive and crucial feature in the study of man is that he is made in the image of God, at the centre of the Intelligible creation of the Word and Wisdom of God.

David, it is not me who is post-modernist, but you are modernist. I do not repudiate truth, I, like most of the pre-modern world, simply do not seek it fullness in exhaustive discursive thought and human language. I do not say that one can simply decide what spin to put on real ’empirical’ observations, but rather one must use reason,(ontological) symbolism and Intellect and that there is no sphere or theory of any size of import that can be based simply on ’empirical’ observations without arrangement, assessment and framing by these. It is not a case of value-driven science, whatever that means, but of metaphysics. Anyone with a basic appreciation of the Philosophy of Science should quickly be able to see this. I suggest reading the Roman Catholic Philosophers of Science and crusaders against Scientism, Wolfgang Smith and Jean Borella.
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The modernist says that everything is discoverable, or everything that can be discovered is, through discursive, analytical reason. The post-modernist says everything is discoverable through myth and metaphysics, but one can choose which myth and metaphysics. The traditionalist, St.Augustine or Nicholas of Cusa for instance, says there is a role for discursive and analytical reason, but only within myth and metaphysics, but a myth and metaphysics that gets closer and closer to an objective truth, inexpressible in human language. As Jean Borella puts it, the foundation to a truly Christian knowledge is thus;
‘Beyond the divisions and oppositions of analytic reason stands the truth of the real, one with itself, inseparably both historical and symbolic, visible and invisible, physical and semantic. This self-evident response rests upon a kind of direct and sudden intuition(Intellectus as it is traditionally called, as opposed to indirect discursive reason or Ratio.) in which was revealed, obscurely but without any possible doubt, the ontologically spiritual nature of the matter of bodies, w8ithout for all that casting any doubt on the reality of their corporeity.’.
Or as Wolfgang Smith puts;
‘Authentic science seeks to grasp the phenomenon:’that which shows itself in itself..but what is ‘the phenomenon’? The answer to this question is given in the Eckhartian doctrine: in recognition, namely, that what is known ‘without medium’ – and thus ‘in itself’!- is none other than the word. Start with whatever you will and seek ‘that which shows itself in itself’: and in the end you will find the Word. You must: there is in truth nothing else to be found!’.
All truth, all science, begins and ends in Christ. In him, as St.Paul tells us, is the fullness of Godhead bodily.
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Chris C; there is no such thing as Nobel Prize for economics, they refuse to give it to such an imprecise ‘science’. It is the bank of Sweden’s prize which rather lamely some decide to call a Nobel Prize.
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Donald Goodman, I must disagree partially with your next comment after my last one and those comments of some of the distributists here which echo its sentiments. That is the problem with the Austrians and the Neoclassicals is not just that they try and separate extrinsic morality(ie our direct moral prohibitions and codes, as opposed to inner virtues like humility or temperance themselves.), but that they try and separate massive areas of the study of man and society from any real arrangement, assessment and framing through Christian symbolism, theology and metaphysics. What Chris C flings at us as an insult, that we are more philosophers than ‘technical’ economists is actually a compliment. What technical means is to share in the attempt of the Scientistic project of aiming for a science built on discontinuous quantity stripped of all quality; the summation of all materialism. This is bad enough in Physics, where Wolfgang Smith reminds us that physicists are loath to acknowledge the existence of the corporeal(and not simply physical.) universe with such things as colour – that apples are red, but it is inexcusable in a science that deals with man and his society directly, like economics.

And I should note that my objections to Austrian theory are similar to my objections to neoclassical theory. Both are primarily deductive, i.e., they create a model of how an economy functions (as they think) which in fact doesn’t square very well with how economies in fact work, and then make deductions fromthat model. In particular, they leave out the vital questions of power, i.e., those with economic or political power can manipulate things in their own favor; secondly, market forces, e.g., supply and demand, always work within cultural and legal norms which are variable and subject to change (in the case of legal norms, usually by the powerful). While market forces are real, they do not operate in a vacuum and are not always the most important factors influencing or determining economic outcomes. In my CSSR article you’ll find a much fuller discussion of these points.

Above Chris C. wrote, “I am not totally clear on why the Austrian school in particlar, as a method of economic analysis only, would pose an incompatible problem with Distrubutism. And if so, what other schools of fundamental economic thought would be better suited? If you would be so kind as to elaborate I would much appreciate it. This is a serious topic for Catholics and all of good will.”

Very good questions, Chris. First of all, on the level of policy – what I called an economic system or way or organizing an economy – Austrian economics takes an extreme libertarian position. You may not be familiar with some of the absurd extremes of their policy positions, such as the right of parents to sell their children. And as I remarked somewhere above, Austrians always go back and forth between economic theory and policy prescriptions without making much of a distinction between them. And since their positions are so extreme, naturally distributists, and orthodox Catholics, will oppose them. But we’ll also oppose Marxists (on a policy level), other libertarians, etc.

But when we look at Austrian economics as a theory of how any economy works, then I haven’t singled it out for criticism any more than I’ve singled out neoclassical economics. In fact, I’ve probably written more against the latter than against Austrian economic theory. But the supporters of neoclassical economics don’t commonly react with cries of outrage as the Austrians tend to do. As far as I know, Fr. Sirico uses neoclassical economic analysis, and I’ve written as much against his activities as against the Austrians.

As to which kind of economic theory is most compatible with distributism, of those of which I’m aware, I prefer the original American institutionalism (Veblen, John R. Commons, etc.) of the first part of the 20th century. John Kenneth Galbraith was also broadly within this school. But as I said in my CSSR article that I linked to above, no school is entirely adequate in my opinion and there is work to be done integrating the insights of the institutionalists, of Fr. Heinrich Pesch, of the German historical school, and of Aristotle himself.

***No, the price cannot be unjust. The price is simply information. I will grant, however, that pursuant to the universal destination of goods, in rare situations, one may have an obligation in justice (as opposed to in charity), to transact with someone at a below market rate or even to give another the fruit of one’s labor.***

Thank you for the MORAL opinion, proving of course that neither you nor Woods is dealing in “economics” but rather your notion of justice in transactions, which belongs to moral theology not “Austrian economics.”

What you will “grant” is not what the Church teaches, however. And, even under your standard, the argument is sophistry: a duty in justice to transact below the market price means that the market price is unjustly high, otherwise there would be no duty in justice to lower it.

***Let me repeat my question and see if you will give me a straight answer: Can any “agreed” price be unjust? Or do you maintain (contrary to the teaching of the Church) that agreement alone (the consenting adult principle) does not establish justice?***
No, the price cannot be unjust. The price is simply information. I will grant, however, that pursuant to the universal destination of goods, in rare situations, one may have an obligation in justice (as opposed to in charity), to transact with someone at a below market rate or even to give another the fruit of one’s labor.

Your opinion is hardly worth little. You say it all. Woods, of course, adamantly defends usurious credit card interest and even rapacious “rent to own” and “payday lending” at rates of up to 240% over time.

Here is what I am trying to say in a nutshell:
I grow tired of the politics. Distributism taught me how to LIVE… not how to vote. All the supporters of the Austrians and the free-marketers talk about is how we should be voting and believing in terms of politics and economics. Where is the hope in that? What real help does that provide the reader struggling to make it in this fallen world?

An interesting discussion, and one that has gotten a little long and increasingly uninteresting.

My opinion is worth little, and I can only say this: reading Austrian economics and people like Weigel and Sirico and Woods makes me think politically. Reading Distribustist authors makes me reflect on my own life and find the truth in Christ. I know where I want to be, and who I prefer reading.

I learned EVERYTHING from Chesterton and Belloc. I used to be deeply in debt, unhappy, unfulfilled, and lost. I found Chesterton, and Belloc, and through their writings learned what Christ and the Church have always taught. These are things you never hear about anymore: like usury, and the dignity of man and labor, the dangers of indebtedness, and the threat of servility.

I put what I learned into practice. I am now virtually debt free. I have learned about the evils of usury. I have started home based enterprises to help my family.

All of this would never have happened without the distributists, and without traditional Catholicism. I would have been largely hopeless still, and unfulfilled. One can read Tom Woods day and night and NEVER EVER learn the right way to live, the way to fulfillment and happiness. Same thing with Sirico, or Weigel. The only thing you learn from the likes of these is how they think you ought to vote.

The same is true with the Church’s teachings on marriage and the family. My kids would not exist had I not found the Church and Humana Vitae and her traditional teachings.

I reject Woods and Sirico and Weigel et. all because I would rather have HOPE and a blueprint for my life as opposed the alternative they are selling. Hope comes from Christ, and from those people who take the time to humanely and beautifully explain to one what the Church has always taught. I am eternally grateful to the likes of G.K. Chesterton…

The American free-marketers… not so much.

How would I ever have learned about the dangers of unsecured debt reading Woods. I would have learned that when I was imprisoned by 30% interest rates on my credit cards, that was just and equitable. How would I have learned to have empathy for my poorer brethren reading Weigel? How would I ever have learned about the dignity of labor from Sirico?

I know where my hope is: it is in Christ. His Church’s traditional teachings give us a blueprint for our lives that is FREEING, and takes us away from servility and slavery. In short, these teachings set us free and help give us hope.

Just my worthless two cents. Thank you Mr. Storck and Mr. Ferrara for being a light in the darkness.

***Chris to answer your question, yes it is certainly possible for an agreed price to be unjust. To the extent a Libertarian would dispute this I would take issue with him. But in our natural disaster scenario, I do admit this is possible and should be punished…***

Well, Woods doesn’t. So we have reached agreement. As to other scenarios, like all moral theological questions it depends upon the particular facts. That is the very function of the law in applying the doctrine of unsconcionablity. But Woods specifically rejects the doctrine of unconscionability. He told me so himself.

***But how does the seller know that the right amount is one gallon of water per family or one hotel room per family? When the seller increases his price (or decreases it), he knows that the price is too high when people no longer choose it at that price. The price permits people to “vote” their actual, subjective preference based on their limited resources.***

Are you seriously proposing the the moral conscience does not equip one to know when he is immorally exploiting his fellow man? The only way he knows is when his fellow man declines to pay? Here you rule out the forms of overreaching condemned by scripture, where a businessman exploits the desperate need of another in order to reach an unconscionable bargain.

Let me repeat my question and see if you will give me a straight answer: Can any “agreed” price be unjust? Or do you maintain (contrary to the teaching of the Church) that agreement alone (the consenting adult principle) does not establish justice? Just answer the question, if you please.

Chris to answer your question, yes it is certainly possible for an agreed price to be unjust. To the extent a Libertarian would dispute this I would take issue with him. But in our natural disaster scenario, I do admit this is possible and should be punished by I assert that it is wrong to presume that this is what typically happens. I do not presume bad faith just because a gas station owner double the price fo a gallon of gas, which happened in my area a few year ago during a massive power outage. I do not know what his supplies are, or when he will get a new shipment, but I will be happy of the 20 or so people ahead of me in line are content with 5 gallons, rather than a fill up. Whether he makes a profit it not a great concern of mine at that moment. Now if Woods & co. happen to agree with me on this point that hardly means I would buy into the whole of the libertarian ethic, only that I don’t assume bad faith just because prices go up in a crisis.

Will B,
“How can the state claim to know either before the fact or after the fact what the “just” price is? When it tries to do so, it will inevitably make matters worse.” It seems that in the kind of case in question the state can easily enough determine after the fact what the “just” price was, namely, whatever price the market had dictated prior to the opportunity for price gouging presenting itself to the unscrupulous hotel owners. By this analysis you don’t need to presume that there is a “just” price independent of market price; you just need to conceive the meaning of “market price” differently.

But how does the seller know that the right amount is one gallon of water per family or one hotel room per family? When the seller increases his price (or decreases it), he knows that the price is too high when people no longer choose it at that price. The price permits people to “vote” their actual, subjective preference based on their limited resources.

Regardless of all this, no Austrian economist would suggest that people wouldn’t be free to sell their product at a below market rate. Even if it were presumed that there was a “just” price independent of the market price (which I don’t conceded), wouldn’t this best be resolved without state action and by letting individuals freely interact with one another, human being to human being? How can the state claim to know either before the fact or after the fact what the “just” price is? When it tries to do so, it will inevitably make matters worse.

Just so I understand, and trying hard not to sophistic, an earlier post of yours advocated allocating based on need now it’s an arbitrary assumption that 1 gallon suffices for one family regardles of size, and this is more just than boosting prices to encourage folks to make do with one case of bottled water rather than 20? Or again, if you don’t want arbitrariness, how do you objectively determine need? I am only citing your words and asking you to elaborate.
Your ideas seem well suited to a self contained city of about 50 people, worthless for a city of a million or so facing a natural disaster.

In a drought, for example, the Distributist seller does not gouge anyone for water. He simply sells what he has at the fair price until his supply is exhausted. There is nothing immoral about selling to each customer in turn on a first come first served basis, without exploiting anyone by jacking up the price so that those with more money get all the water. Or he could say, one gallon per family so that every family is treated the same regardless of money. He sins against no one. There is no need for affidavits of net worth. Stop with the sophistry, already.

Chris the “normal price” is always subject to change depending on economic circumstances, often times beyond the sellers control. And as you didn’t address my entire point and unless you yet intend to do so, I believe that the Distributist answer to addressing scarce resources is rationing at the discretion of the seller. And somehow that promises to be more just than a hike in prices which you and others assume to be “price gouging” motivated only by greed? Our greedy seller will be transformed in a Distributist world into a virtuous one who allocates based on true need, determined how again? A net worth statement, or signed affidavit? And measured how against the customer who the seller has not yet seen and may not for several hours? I am ready to be corrected by tghe Magisterium but I do not believe that Catholic Social teaching calls for rationing of the type that you call for.

***So in the case you have just referred to, he presumably(?) wouldn’t grant that it just never occurred to him that hotel space can be allocated the Christian way by the hotel owner simply charging his normal rate and imposing a one room per family limit – so what would he actually say?***

Chris,
Thanks for the information. You wrote earlier: “On and on it goes, and when you confront him on views his reply is always the same: you have caricatured my position. … It is time for Woods and his defenders to stop complaining about a vendetta and admit that he is simply a full square opponent of the social teaching of the Church—not just on how to apply it, but in principle. (He is constantly evading his dissent from principle by shifting to arguments about practice.)” So in the case you have just referred to, he presumably(?) wouldn’t grant that it just never occurred to him that hotel space can be allocated the Christian way by the hotel owner simply charging his normal rate and imposing a one room per family limit – so what would he actually say?

“Your argument, David, is that all the attacks on Woods are based on his personality, not on his beliefs.”
Paul, I have to be honest with you: that is utter nonsense. I have certainly made no such argument. And you are again ignoring my actual argument. Whether or not an ad hominem is justified, it is still not ad argumentum.

Well, golly gee, how about not gouging anybody and just charging the normal price instead of exploiting desperation? Or are you now going to argue that since price-gouging “allocates scarce resources” the merchant has a duty to price-gouge?

You are descending into ends-justifies-means argumentation. The merchant who gouges no one commits no wrong against anyone. The merchant who price-gouges cannot justify his act on the basis that its outcome is resource conservation. Ends-justifies-means morality or consequentialism is the very basis of Austrian arguments in this area. The Church condemns it.

And how does he judge one individual’s need against that of another who might not even enter his store for another hour? That there is some price gouging in such circumstances is true, but more often a seller is simply trying with imprecise information about the risk at hand to figure out a way to hold onto his products for as long as possible. Who hasn’t seen images of hundreds of panicked shoppers clearing out store shelves in a few hours, leaving little or nothing for those unfortutnate to come in l!

Your argument, David, is that all the attacks on Woods are based on his personality, not on his beliefs. But it is precisely his beliefs that are being commented on. And it is indeed bold to say the least for any person to saying Catholic Social Teaching is wrong. Chutzpah is certainly the word, since Pope Pius XI explicitly condemned the idea that Catholic Social Teaching can be ignored, much less said to be wrong.

chris c., I believe the problem is the self-appointed “experts” in economics freely ridicule any notion of returning to Catholic Social Teaching, so good luck with finding a peer-reviewed board of economists looking at Distributism with no bias. They impose their own morality in the name of a “moral-free” science, but don’t want Catholic morality into the equation.

“Problem is, David, you want the Distributists to rehash all their positions for your benefit, instead of looking on all that they wrote in the past.”
Paul, that’s not true. You are again just ignoring my point.

***For those who actually know, is this how Woods would actually analyze such a situation? Or would this be a case where he would distinguish the principle from its application (as he evidently often does want to do)? In other words, does this argument show what a wing-nut Woods is, or is it just a straw man attack on his position? I’m happy to be corrected, but I can’t help suspecting it’s the latter.***

In his The Church and the Market, Woods defends price-gouging on exactly the basis you note, defending the doubling of hotel room rates to capitalize on the demand during 9/11, he argues that “Thanks to ‘unconscionable’ price gouging, the family in question economizes on hotel space, and the extra room the might have used in normal circumstances is now available to another family …” It never occurs to him that hotel space can be allocated the Christian way by the hotel owner simply charging his normal rate and imposing a one room per family limit.

Noting that Days Inn was embarrassed into refunding the overcharges, Woods scoffs that “state officials doubtless considered this a victory for the general principle that ‘price gouging’ is a vicious and anti-social offense…” Ibid. 47-50.

So for Woods, price-gouging is a normal market function that must not be penalized by law.

You really don’t think Woods is being arrogant by saying the Church has no business on imposing ethics on economics or that of Dr. Luckey saying that Catholic Social Teaching is wrong and that of the Austrian capitalists is correct? Then there is nothing else I can say.

Chris to pick up on one of your points,Donald G. too, if the moral approach is allocation according to need, is that not a form of rationing and if so how is that on the face of it just? By what means other than pure guesswork is the merchant in the natural disaster/doomsday scenario to determine need BEFORE he decides what to sell, how much and at what price? Does he ask his customers for a net worth statement? Make them swear out an affidavt attesting to their relative need? And how does he judge one individual’s need against that of another who might not even enter his store for another hour? That there is some price gouging in such circumstances is true, but more often a seller is simply trying with imprecise information about the risk at hand to figure out a way to hold onto his products for as long as possible. Who hasn’t seen images of hundreds of panicked shoppers clearing out store shelves in a few hours, leaving little or nothing for those unfortutnate to come in later? Why the assumption that bad faith and greed are the most likely explanation for the decision of the seller? And as I have said earlier in a Distributist world greed, envy, and selfishness, and the misconduct that goes with it all, will still be with us.
Quick point to Paul, agreed that the Nobel prize does not necessarily mean that much but I am looking for some forum, other than among Distributists themselves, in which their ideas have been examined and peer reviewed and analyzed by those expert in the field of economics. Otherwise, it may be a good and sound organizing principle as Thomas Storck told me earlier, while still having little to offer as a fundamental approach to economic theory. But, if that is the case, Distributism would seem to be field unto itself apart from Austrian economics, or Keynsian for that matter, so isn’t it possible to on some level reconcile the views? I am hoping maybe for Thomas to elaborate as I requested. Not here to criticize but only to learn.

Problem is, David, you want the Distributists to rehash all their positions for your benefit, instead of looking on all that they wrote in the past. They don’t have time for that. Of course, it isn’t helpful, since you just joined in without any clear knowledge of what Distributists believe.

…and Paul: do you seriously mean to suggest that you think a comment about Woods’ chutzpah is addressed ad argumentum, rather than ad hominem? I’m a little confused by your challenge to me to “prove it.”

This is what Thomas Woods says, from his article “Three Catholic Cheers for Capitalism”:

“The point is, since we know that man has perfectly valid reasons for seeking the highest return on his investment, or earning the highest wage, instead of wasting time on foolish and irrelevant lamentations regarding the greedy people in the world — a matter of moral philosophy rather than economics — we ought to employ human reason to learn how this perfectly moral desire for gain redounds to society’s benefit by ensuring that people produce what society urgently needs rather than more of something that society already enjoys in abundance. Stated this way, the profit-and-loss system of an economy based on the division of labor, an indispensable institution of civilized society, suddenly appears not only profoundly moral but actually obligatory, which is probably why opponents of capitalism never do state it this way.”

Paul,
I’m afraid you’re not addressing what I said. I’ll reiterate: “If such comments are intended only for those who are already convinced, fine; but for those who would like to become better informed, I think they’re not so helpful.”

“**When prices go up, this prevents shortages. When prices go up, this also encourages producers to flood the market with their product, thereby bringing prices back down.***
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That’s a typical example of Austrian-type economists making excuses for the huge injustices that result from the blessing of unbridled greed. Don’t worry about price-gouging; merchants who charge $100 for a glass of water are really *helping* the poor people dying of thirst! The high prices lead even *more* merchants into the area, and the price goes down!”

This is a nice example: For those who actually know, is this how Woods would actually analyze such a situation? Or would this be a case where he would distinguish the principle from its application (as he evidently often does want to do)? In other words, does this argument show what a wing-nut Woods is, or is it just a straw man attack on his position? I’m happy to be corrected, but I can’t help suspecting it’s the latter.

Personal characteristics, David? Prove it. All you have been doing is making accusations of name-calling on Distributists on their opponents. Show that they are doing ad hominems, instead of taking seriously Catholic Social Teaching. Stop making Distributists having to rehash articles they wrote in the past; it’s all well-documented to show how much contempt the Austrian capitalists, at least those who follow Woods, have for Catholic Social Teaching.

A: “I don’t mind discussing his arguments (and I’ve done so more than once), but I don’t think anyone could find anything I’ve written which approaches a “vendetta against Woods.” In fact, to make this charge is to try to take the discussion off the real issue and focus it on personalities.”

B: [After listing a few quotes from Woods:] “There is certainly no lack of boldness here, even of what we may call chutzpah. As far as I can see, very few priests have adopted this mode of dissent from Catholic teaching. That may be because few priests who value a reputation for adherence to the magisterium want to be associated with a method of dissent which is so obvious and clear. For the Austrians make no bones about rejecting Catholic social teaching. It is true that they claim such teaching is not authoritative, but it takes a strong stomach to so openly reject what clearly the supreme pontiffs themselves regard as an important part of their teaching authority.”

Maybe it does take a strong stomach, and maybe Woods does have chutzpah, but such allegations about personal characteristics and appropriate visceral reaction do not address the argument that were made. Same goes for Mr. Ferrara’s dismissal of the distinction between principles and application: It seems that that is an entirely unavoidable distinction, and to contemptuously dismiss appeals to this distinction as obviously being some kind of illegitimate special pleading, not worthy of a college sophomore and all that, doesn’t come across as very convincing. If such comments are intended only for those who are already convinced, fine; but for those who would like to become better informed, I think they’re not so helpful.

**When prices go up, this prevents shortages. When prices go up, this also encourages producers to flood the market with their product, thereby bringing prices back down.***
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That’s a typical example of Austrian-type economists making excuses for the huge injustices that result from the blessing of unbridled greed. Don’t worry about price-gouging; merchants who charge $100 for a glass of water are really *helping* the poor people dying of thirst! The high prices lead even *more* merchants into the area, and the price goes down!
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The merchant’s not being greedy, see; he’s just being a humanitarian.
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This is nonsense, of course; this argument makes the notion of commutative justice completely meaningless because by it *all* prices, by necessity, are just if paid voluntarily. But St. Thomas points out pretty explicitly that this argument is bogus:
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“[I]f the one man derive a great advantage by becoming possessed of the other man’s property, and the seller not be at a loss through being without that thing, the latter ought not to raise the price, because the advantage accruing to the buyer, is not due to the seller, but to a circumstance affecting the buyer. Now no man should sell what is not his, though he may charge for the loss he suffers.” ST IIa-IIae Q. 77 Art. 1.
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So the merchant who charges $100 for a glass of water and justifies it because, darn it, water’s scarce, and I’m getting everything I can for it, is plainly acting unjustly even if the buyer, through circumstances which he cannot control, is compelled to pay it. This is because the buyer isn’t paying for what he’s getting from the seller; he’s paying for a circumstance which affects *him*, and the seller’s taking advantage of that, not charging for the loss he suffers.
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Nobody’s putting a gun to the buyer’s head, and an Austrian would claim that this price is therefore just. After all, he could just go to a different seller if he didn’t like it; and if there are no different sellers, then he’s just got to decide if his life is worth it to him. But this callous philosophy isn’t Catholic.
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It’s also an excellent reminder of why economics is *not* a value-free science. No matter how you slice it, the merchant in this water-selling situation has a choice to make, a fundamentally moral choice, and Austrian economics purports to tell us what the just choice is. That’s why it’s really a moral theory, and as such it contradicts that of the Church.
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Praise be to Christ the King!

The popes critical of liberalism were dealing with radical atheists of the Enlightenment who were overthrowing governments, killing the king and aristocracy, and legislating against any institution claiming authority on moral or supernatural grounds. The argument that these condemnations are relevant to any Catholic calling himself a “liberal” today — for example, to one who argues for minimal government — is mistaken.
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Why do you want to shy away from the fact that the Popes condemned the main principles of the Enlightenment, regardless of whether they were atheist or not? That was all I did. Nothing about Distributism here.

Perhaps I should have stated that considering the “justice” of a price apart from the market price is absurd. Of course, people routinely walk away from prices they feel are “unjust.” But all they’re really saying is that, at that price, they prefer to use their resources in a different manner.’

__________

Apparently the Scholastics thought differently, and medieval determination of just prices was actually a bit elastic, since it is quite hard to find the exact just price, only approximate; thus, the min. just price and the max. just price. It was determined by the best members of a community. See George O’Brien’s essay on this, An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching: http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924016917134

**When prices go up, this prevents shortages. When prices go up, this also encourages producers to flood the market with their product, thereby bringing prices back down.***

So, charging dying people $100 for a gallon of water during a drought prevents shortages? Hardly. It exploits shortages. The moral approach to a shortage is allocation according to need, not who has the money to scoop up the necessary. A merchant must not exploit desperation, but must all the more charge a fair price and make his fair profit during emergencies. Price-gouging does nothing but insure that he who has the most money wins, not he who has the most need. Nor does government have to allocate. The moral conscience should suffice to prevent this form of exploitation. The law is there only to compel a refund when someone gouges another. And that is as it should be.

As I indicated, the thread has moved beyond your initial misunderstanding of Daniel’s post. I welcome you to revisit it by scrolling up, but I do not think we should continue to clutter the thread by continuing to talk about it.

BTW, I am not enlightened, but I use the few talents God gave me, and I see the Nobel Peace Prize to be nothing but sham. The secular world operates in opposition to the Catholic social order; that’s quite evident, except only the Austrian capitalists, who believe in the fictitious economic man.

**You say, “What happened to Kenny could never happen in a Distributist economy—that is, one organized according to the moral principles of Catholic social teaching.” My understanding of the case is that several regulations were violated by Monfort leading up to Kenny’s heart attack, many regulations I would think would remain intact in a distributist society (or at least, regulations similar to them). Is your claim that a distributist society would enforce the regulations more efficiently? I’m confused what role Catholic social teaching would play either in enforcing regulations intended to protect workers, or failing to enforce them.***

A very thoughtful and fair question. First of all, in an Austrian economy we would not even have those regulations to enforce. So that’s one difference. But, in a Distributist economy, companies like Monfort would never come into existence. There would be no government subsidies of the meat industry, no vast economies of scale, and the prevailing model would be local farming and distribution—a growing trend right now in the local produce movements. There would be no kill lines, blood tanks, or other deadly machines, for cows would be slaughtered locally, the old fashioned way, as they indeed are with local grass fed beef and organic chickens.

Further, employers who followed Catholic social teaching would never abandon people like Kenny, but would create funds with other businesses in the same sector. No injured laborer in the guild system was left penniless and alone, nor would such happen in a society built upon the moral primacy of labor over capital, which the Austrians (of course) deny.

Perhaps I should have stated that considering the “justice” of a price apart from the market price is absurd. Of course, people routinely walk away from prices they feel are “unjust.” But all they’re really saying is that, at that price, they prefer to use their resources in a different manner.

I almost can’t believe you’re raising price-gouging in emergencies. Yes, demand goes up and prices go up. When prices go up, this prevents shortages. When prices go up, this also encourages producers to flood the market with their product, thereby bringing prices back down.

I appreciate that distributists are trying to reconcile Catholic teaching with economics, but when Distributists raise these sorts of arguments regarding price-gouging, it leads me to believe that they have no solid economical foundation.

Stephen, what bad inference? That the Popes condemned a lot of the Enlightenment thinkers for a lot of errors, even theistic ones? Daniel clearly stated the Popes only condemned atheistic thinkers of the Enlightenment. I wasn’t stating anything concerning Distributism per se.

chris c., all I’m saying is that winning a Nobel Prize or anything doesn’t amount to anything. Quite a few people won the Nobel Peace prize (Obama, for one!). If you think it really means something, there’s a certain swamp I want to sell you. Buying into the secular world is exactly what you, Woods, and others are doing, separating economics from Christian ethics.

Paul, being ignorant, unlike your very enlightended self, I won’t attempt a proof of any kind. Good to see you Distributists being so fact based and not resorting to personal smears. As Distributist economists are not interested in Nobel Prizes( what will they do if the phone rings from Oslo informing one of them that they have actually won?? ), I would hope they are interested for the sake of their own credibility in being peer reviewed by others in the economic field, or is that a no-no as well? By the way as an aside, seeking the common good and actually achieving the common good are not one in the same. What seems brilliant in the confines of one’s own mind often has no bearing whatsoever on things as they truly are. In ignorance(at least as compared to Paul) Chris C.

You say, “What happened to Kenny could never happen in a Distributist economy—that is, one organized according to the moral principles of Catholic social teaching.” My understanding of the case is that several regulations were violated by Monfort leading up to Kenny’s heart attack, many regulations I would think would remain intact in a distributist society (or at least, regulations similar to them). Is your claim that a distributist society would enforce the regulations more efficiently? I’m confused what role Catholic social teaching would play either in enforcing regulations intended to protect workers, or failing to enforce them.

Thomas, I do not want well thought out arguments against Locke, at least not simpliciter. As I’ve said before (I believe this makes the third time, which I’m told is the charm), my original objection, my only objection, was that Paul originally made a bad inference from Daniel’s post. That is all I sought to point out. The thread has moved away from those original posts, making any further defenses, or misunderstandings, of my original post quite unnecessary.

*On the other hand, on issues such as just price, my economic views (which, of course, I believe to be sound) consider the price as an amoral piece of information. To talk about the “justice” of a price becomes absurd.*

But nobody really believes that. Everyone’s sense of justice indicates that prices can be unjust and the result of overreaching. Price-gouging during emergencies for food and water is a classic example of how a “market price” is not objectively just but rather is the result of compulsion and exploitation. The judicial and legal correction of business overreaching in such cases is as old as Christendom itself. The community, arbitrators, just men, magistrates, and so forth always provided a mechanism for the relief of someone who was exploited by the other party—the laesio enormis, for example.

I appreciate the discussion and recognize that the lines between economics and morality often blur. I support the free market and recognize the contributions of the Austrian economists, but specifically recognize that the market is not an end in itself and must have a strong foundation of virtue and morality. Without it, the market descends into chaos and barbarism. This is where the Church has so much to offer, in forming the values of the market participants. The market does not tell us what we should prefer. The Church does, and I am grateful.

On the other hand, on issues such as just price, my economic views (which, of course, I believe to be sound) consider the price as an amoral piece of information. To talk about the “justice” of a price becomes absurd. How can a faithful Catholic reconcile this with the popes discussion of a just price? It seems clear to me that in addressing the concept of prices, the popes are actually addressing an economic matter. How can the popes have any compentence to say what a price should be?

These are challenging issues. Catholics economists should tread carefully, but so should the Church in addressing economic matters.

If you want to see the difference between Distributism and “Austrian Economics” as applied in the real world, get a copy of Fast Food Nation and read the section entitled “Kenny” beginning at p. 186. What happened to Kenny could never happen in a Distributist economy—that is, one organized according to the moral principles of Catholic social teaching.

chris c., you are very ignorant if you think thinkers of Distributism would be winning Nobel Prizes. You’ve fallen with the modern economists’ crowd evidently, believing true discoveries in economics would be given some sort of prize. Even if it were the case, no true Distributist care about prizes, only what truly works, integrating the social order by Christian ethics. Having true prosperity means the common good is served, where each one has what he needs, and charity given to those who still need more. This has happened in the Distributist societies of the Middle Ages, more or less, despite human fallibility. This has NEVER HAPPENED using liberal economics, which Woods et al advocates. Pretty lame criticism of the Austrian capitalists? Prove it. All we’ve heard from you and others is that Distributists don’t understand Austrian capitalism, without any evidence whatsoever, only that it must be so.

Just to add I had not seen Thomas Storck’s post before responding to Chris and my thanks to Thomas for explaining how Distrubutism fits in as an organizational principle rather than as a fundamental approach to economic theory as the Austrian school among others is. That being the case, I am not totally clear on why the Austrian school in particlar, as a method of economic analysis only, would pose an incompatible problem with Distrubutism.And if so, what other schools of fundamental economic thought would be better suited?If you would be so kind as to elaborate I would much appreciate it. This is a serious topic for Catholics and all of good will.

Chris the only individual I mentioned by name in my post was Von Mises, but clearly you have gotten personal about others, Woods included, and maybe justifiably so, but my point was that Distributist economic rebuttals of the Austrian school are pretty lame, and the dispute is of a more philosophical and ethical nature, with very little in that way of solid economic analysis, and yes I have read Mr Medaille, and I have followed this debate more carefully than you give me credit for. I have read your book on Libertarianism and Woods book as well. I just don’t find much of anything yet in Distributism that economically, would seem to apply to a world of real people making real economic and financial choices. And if you can help me with a list of Nobel prize winning Distributists or even peer reviewed articles that would be great and would bolster the standing of Distributism as a serious economic school of thought.

Chris Ferrara’s comments are correct. Speaking for myself, I’ve never made personal attacks on Woods, whereas he has made personal attacks or snide remarks about many of his critics. I’ve said and say that he’s a dissenter because he rejects certain papal teachings – indeed he himself admits, even proclaims his rejection. Yes, he makes an argument as to why it’s ok to reject those teachings. But so do all dissenters. I don’t mind discussing his arguments (and I’ve done so more than once), but I don’t think anyone could find anything I’ve written which approaches a “vendetta against Woods.” In fact, to make this charge is to try to take the discussion off the real issue and focus it on personalities.

Distributism, by the way, is a way of organizing an economy or an economic system. It is not a fundamental approach to economic theory as Austrian economics attempts to be. Distributism is best contrasted with capitalism or socialism. Austrian economics (as far as it is theory) is best contrasted with neoclassical economics or institutional economics or the German historical school or Marxist economics. Each of these latter (at least in theory) can be applied to various economic systems.

***The attacks on the Austrian school appear to be overwhelmingly personal and directed against the character or lack therof of its adherents, rather than any rational and dispassionate assessment of its economic claims and proofs. Is there a Nobel prize winner among Distributist economists? Have their claims been peer reviewed by others, learned in the field? Until and unless there is I will be more apt to hold it as an ideal in search of utopia than a serious economic system.***

This is nonsense. My critique of the “Austrian School”—along with about a dozen others—has focused on its many errors in the fields of morality, social ethics, moral theology, and philosophy. I have not criticized anyone’s character.

On the other hand, Woods has called me a dolt, and has charged that everything I write in opposition to Austrian views is motivated by envy, spite, pettiness, and vindictiveness.

In a classic leftwing smear job—my opponent must be insane—he has even suggested that I have neglected my children to conduct an obsessive campaign against him. I have written six books only one of which is about the Austrians, engage in pro-life litigation all over the country, and have produced millions of words for the Remnant, The Latin Mass, Fatima Crusader, and other publications having nothing to do with Woods or the Austrians. Yet this young pup, whose career I helped to launch back in 2002, has tried to defend his arrogant dissension from Church teaching by assassinating my character.

He has also denounced as “doltish” Dale Ahlquist, John Medaille and every other Distributist that has taken him to task.

We have attacked HIS character? Evidently, you haven’t been following this controversy very closely.

Stephen Krogh wants “well-thought-out arguments” against Locke in an article that does not deal with Locke. Or perhaps in comment boxes that are hardly the best places to carry on detailed arguments about complex philosophical and historical movements and thinkers. I have written about Locke at length elsewhere, and will be happy to refer interested readers to those places.

As to Austrian economics, I have two objections. First, on the level simply of descriptive economics it doesn’t work. That is, it partakes of the same fatal deductive flaw that mainstream economics does. It does not pay sufficient attention to actual economic history and facts. A good example of this is Thomas Woods’ response to my CSSR article I linked to above. I point out, as a counter-example to the neoclassical explanation of salaries and wages, that
“in recent years CEOs of failing corporations have received large salaries, bonuses and other rewards even as their companies were going into bankruptcy or otherwise performing poorly [and] in support of this I cite among other sources a Business Week article, which explains that the compensation of such CEOs is set by colleagues on the board of directors and has nothing to do with market forces. Now how does Woods respond to this? He writes, `Here Storck relies on the old Berle-Means thesis from 1932… The argument is that while the owners, or stockholders, want the firm to be as profitable as possible, management is more interested in posh benefits, perks, and other such rewards that benefit them but hurt the firm. . . . A difficulty for Storck’s argument is that much work has been done on the subject of corporate control since 1932… Storck makes no reference to the important work of Henry Manne, whose 1965 article ‘Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control’ began a sustained reconsideration of the Berle-Means thesis.’” (This quote is from my response to Wood’s response on chrniclesmagazine.org)

This seems to be ridiculous. Someone wrote an article in 1965 trying to prove that certain behavior could not occur. Well, the behavior occurred anyway. Woods does not attempt to deny the facts – he simply says that the facts violate some a priori theory and that’s that.

Second, despite what they say, Woods et al. do not simply deal with economic behavior, positive economics as it is often called. They make moral pronouncements, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. Chris Ferrara has many examples of this in his excellent book, The Church and the Libertarian, but if you look at almost any example of Austrian economic thought, you’ll see plenty of moral judgments and dicatates. I have no problem with people acting as moralists, but they should admit what they’re doing and not pretend they’re simply describing things as a neutral observer. And if moralists are Catholics, then they should submit to the moral judgments of the Church and not try to evade them.

*But what they’re actually doing is using that social discipline—some of which is undoubtedly valid—to justify huge, sweeping claims about politics and economics, the philosophical foundations of each, and the appropriate actions of governments. *That* is morality, not economics; and *that* is clearly under the authority of the Church.*

That’s it in a nutshell. There is nothing more maddening about this sect than its constant bobbing and weaving between “oh, this is just a value neutral science” and “here’s how society should be organized.”

One advantage that the Austrian school has in this debate is that at least it is an economic system using economic arguments and data whereas Distrubutism qualifies more as a philosophy than a system of economics subject to objective testing of its claims. The attacks on the Austrian school appear to be overwhelmingly personal and directed against the character or lack therof of its adherents, rather than any rational and dispassionate assessment of its economic claims and proofs. Is there a Nobel prize winner among Distributist economists? Have their claims been peer reviewed by others, learned in the field? Until and unless there is I will be more apt to hold it as an ideal in search of utopia than a serious economic system.
As to the criticisms on moral grounds of Von Mises, and others of the Austrian school, they certainly could be said of those of the Keynesain school as well could they not? If so and since there will be likely only one dominant school of economics governing the views of policy makers in power at any given time, why the negative attention only to the Austrians? The practical likelihood is that either their ideas or the Keynsian view is likely to predominate amongst our policymakers. Between the two which is likelier to alleviate the material suffering in our nation and world? Any system, even Distributism, can be misused by those seeking to exploit it for undue personal gain. Or will greed, malice, and envy disappear when the Distributist utopia comes to pass?

Mr. Ferrara,
Perhaps Woods is actually more or less a moron, as you and others seem to think, but I remain sceptical. Could you explain this to me: How does one (such as Woods)even begin to defend the proposition “the market has a principle of self-direction which governs it more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect” within the particular methodological strictures pertaining to empirical economics?

Wessexman: the “fundamental mistake” you mention appears to me to be no such thing – as perhaps you grudgingly grant when you say, “I’m not saying there is no role for ‘empirical’ science.” The notion that all sciences are fundamentally ‘value’-driven is purely post-modern, isn’t it, exactly the kind of thing popes have railed against? Of course there are abuses of so-called ’empirical science,’ but abusus non tollit usum. Accordingly when you talk about things like evolution or behaviorism, clearly there are perfectly legitimate empirical involving these subjects which do not intrinsically involve taking a position on things pertaining to the moral order. When W. Smith says: “In short, the Newtonian heritage turns out to be multifaceted and curiously equivocal,” obviously the same principle applies, and we must observe that if this is how the *Newtonian heritage* turns out to be, then it seems that a fortiori this is how *critiques* of such ‘heritages’ (e.g., the critiques of particular economic views here) are also likely to turn out to be.

I think what Mr. Ferrara says is the crux of this whole argument. Woods and other Catholic capitalists argue that economics is a moral-free science over which the Church has no authority. However, they simultaneously are happy to concede that economics is a social discipline studying the free choices of mankind.
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*This is a fundamental contradiction*. If it studies the free choices of mankind, then it’s studying morality. And if it’s studying morality, then it’s clearly under the authority of the Church.
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What the Catholic capitalists are doing is not teaching a social science; if they limited themselves to doing such, restating the law of supply and demand and the like, nobody would say a word against them (at least morally). In that sense, economics is just a social discipline, like anthropology or sociology, describing reality as best as it can.
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But what they’re actually doing is using that social discipline—some of which is undoubtedly valid—to justify huge, sweeping claims about politics and economics, the philosophical foundations of each, and the appropriate actions of governments. *That* is morality, not economics; and *that* is clearly under the authority of the Church.
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Praise be to Christ the King!

David, in both your paragraphs you make a fundamental mistake; you conclude that there can be distinct non-moral and non-metaphysical disciplines, like economics and indeed like biology and psychology, that are ‘value’ free.
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At this point it may be worth reiterating that metaphysics/theology and (ontological) symbolism must come before extrinsic morality. Woods and his ilk only talk of such extrinsic morality, by which I mean moral rules. He talks neither of intrinsic morality, the inner virtues and states of being like temperance and ultimately being Christ-like, or metaphysics/theology and symbolism.
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Again I must state that I’m not saying there is no role for ’empirical’ science. What there is no room for is whole disciplines and often even theories that claim to be simply based upon such ‘science’. This is as true in biology, psychology and physics as it is economics. This is why we have or had evolution, behaviourism, Newtonian or classical mechanistic physics forced on us by scientific populisers as expansive worldviews or semi-worldviews. The Roman Catholic Physicist and Philosopher Wolfgang Smith describes Newton’s influence thus; ‘In short, the Newtonian heritage turns out to be multifaceted and curiously equivocal. Apart from mechanics, optics and gravitational theorems, it contains the elements of Cartesian metaphysics and an uncompromising positivism, all brought together in one magnum opus of incalculable influence.’. Similar criticisms can certainly be made of ‘sciences’ that deal with humanity and claim for themselves large spheres of purely ’empirical’ or technical, value and metaphysics-free expertise.

‘Wessexman, I’m not sure what you’re getting at with a distinction concerning “technical” use of Austrian economics. I don’t see a conflict between Austrian economics and Church teaching, so I wouldn’t have any desire to make qualifications about “technical” usage.’

But Austrian Economics in its entirety is rationalist, individualist, humanist, as I recall quite involved by Descartes and Jeremy Bentham. It aims to create an holistic economic ‘science’ without basing its self on a Christian vision throughout. Take production and work. The Austrians do not include in their theories the fact that man is made in the image of God; that like God it is a key part of his purpose to create; that the cosmos is the intelligible creation of the Word and Wisdom of God; that therefore what we make we must make according the Intellectual principles of God’s creation, which defines the Form or Idea of the thing to made and the material to be used, as the Angelic Doctor puts it ‘now the origins of works of art is the human mind, the image and issue of the divine mind which is the origin of natural things. Therefore the processes of art should imitate the processes of nature, and works of art the works of nature.'(in the Middle Ages there was correctly no distinction between the Arts and the Crafts.); that the worker must have proper dignity and that the process of work, as well as the outcome, must be arranged so that what he spends so much of his life doing is a means for him to Intellectually appreciate God and his creation and not something totally distinct from his spiritual life(which as the Scripture says should be prayer without ceasing.) arranged according to principles other than those imitative and symbolic of God.
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Austrian economics has no time for such principles within its ‘Economics’. It has not time for the symbolic, Intellectual and Loving way we should approach all of our lives and societies and nature ideally. It has no time for the total man. So the idea that there is no conflict between it and traditional Christianity is absurd.
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‘I didn’t mean to imply that the popes only condemned a small band of men when they condemned liberalism. The popes are specific in spelling out just what about the philosophy of liberalism they are condemning. That’s my point: their condemnation is not a blanket covering anything that might happen to be associated with the term.’
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However they, and traditional Christianity, certainly condemned most of what is at the core of mainstream classical liberalism and the Austrian School.

Exactly so. Woods is NOT doing economics. In defending that principle he is contradicting the Popes’ rejection of that principle in the realm of ethics, positing a morally self-regulating market whose excesses ought not to be corrected by what he calls “outside observers.” This is my point.

“David, you would have to read Woods’ other works and article, to see that he specifically says economics is a moral-free science. It is well known in the dispute between liberal economics and Catholic social teaching that this is what he says.”
Thanks for the comment, Paul. Can you explain this a little more? I would think that economics indeed is a moral-free science, just as biology or psychology is. This simply means that moral questions, as such, are not addressed by economists or biologists or psychologists, as such. It does not mean that such sciences are purely autonomous, that they ought not to be subject to external constraint from any higher science.

To Mr. Ferrara: “Woods adamantly defends in The Church and the Market (p. 56): that the market “has a principle of self-direction which governs it more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect.””
Isn’t the obvious rejoinder here that anyone defending such a boldly metaphysical claim about the market is simply not doing economics? Perhaps I don’t understand the issue, but to me it seems misguided to treat such a seemingly metaphysical view as a theory that properly belongs within the province of economics.

Wessexman, I’m not sure what you’re getting at with a distinction concerning “technical” use of Austrian economics. I don’t see a conflict between Austrian economics and Church teaching, so I wouldn’t have any desire to make qualifications about “technical” usage.
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I didn’t mean to imply that the popes only condemned a small band of men when they condemned liberalism. The popes are specific in spelling out just what about the philosophy of liberalism they are condemning. That’s my point: their condemnation is not a blanket covering anything that might happen to be associated with the term.

Then there is the whole argument about the technical competence of the Austrians. Why should Christians listen more to Mises and not Samuelson or Keynes or Sraffa or Thorstein Veblen?
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Also Woods, in his recent letter to the Catholic Herald makes the distinction between value neutral, technical economics and morality. Even in the natural sciences, as Wolfgang Smith reminds us, this distinction is not clear cut. There certainly are observable, empirical facts, but how we organise and make sense of them is always quite coloured by our philosophical and Intellect perspective and assumptions. Modern natural sciences and scientific populisers are still very much influenced by Cartesianism, postivism, nominalism, mechanistic, always striving to quantify everything and so forth. So clear-cut talk about the technical versus moral sides of Economics, which being a humane ‘science’ is bound to be even more convoluted, is silly. What I know of Austrian and Neoclassical economics certainly seems to bear this out.

What you are doing Daniel(sorry I kept calling you David, not sure why.) if making the argument, or at least implying, that those Christians and Roman Catholics who embrace the Austrian School and Classical liberalism, at least most of them, only utilise such figures for technical purposes. Mises or Smith are only used when one has to explain prices or the business cycle in the most technical terms, seems to be the basic implication. I reject this. Anyone who reads Christian libertarians and Christian ‘conservatives’ influenced by such thought can see that most do not restrain it to technical questions alone(whatever they really are.).
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You also made the argument, or the implication, that the Popes only condemned the likes of Diderot and Rousseau and did not include most of mainstream classical liberalism within their denunciations. Thomas Storck has given excellent quotes from recent Popes themselves to show they obviously draw their net of criticism of liberalism far wider than just radical atheists and regicides. For my part I decided to take a different tact and reiterate why anyone familiar with the ethos, spirituality and metaphysics of the Fathers, of the Schoolmen and the Hesychasts should immediately recognise that much of the core of modern liberalism and modernism, including Locke and Smith, far beyond just the radical and atheists is contrary to traditional Christianity and it holistic, spiritual ideal; to the total man made in the image of God in a universe formed through the intelligible Word and Wisdom of God.
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That is not to say everything that Adam Smith in particular wrote was not without insights, indeed I believe John Medaille has written of Smith’s insights. Nor even does it mean all of liberalism is faulty, but the rot is far, far more extensive than you imply.

I think we have heard far more than enough of the “personal vendetta against Tom Woods” argument. One can fairly say, however, that based on his endless stream of writings critical of papal teaching on matters of justice in the market, Woods has a personal vendetta against Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI.

Woods writes: “I have nothing but profound respect for the pre-Vatican II popes whose economic commentary I regret having to criticize in the present study. They were good, holy, and courageous men… from whose writings I have profited immensely. Yet, great as they were, merely by virtue of occupying the Chair of Peter they did not inherent any particular economic insight over what any intelligent layman might possess.” (Church and the Market, 9).

Rupert Ederer rightly called this statement an example of “despicable hubris”: Woods has “profited” from the writings of all those good and holy popes—how big of him. It is here that Woods launches his primary red herring: the pretense that the Popes have taught on “economics” rather than laying down basic moral principles governing justice in the affairs of men that just happen to involve the exchange of goods and services.

Woods has taken it upon himself to write article after article and an entire book contesting the fundamental moral norms of Catholic social teaching: the just wage, the just price, the condemnation of usury, the rights of the working man in natural justice, the moral primacy of labor over capital, the condemnation of the excesses of unbridled competition, the immorality of overreaching in business, and the fundamental rejection of precisely the error Woods adamantly defends in The Church and the Market (p. 56): that the market “has a principle of self-direction which governs it more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect.” Pius XI denounced that error as “a poisoned spring, [from which] have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.” (Ibid.) Woods, going head to head with Pius XI, defends it as “the fundamental posture of liberal economics” (ibid) and dares to assert—against the Popes and in line with the deists of the 18th century—that the free market represents the “finger of God.” (Ibid. 115). This is crude and embarrassing nonsense not worthy of a college sophomore.

Under the Rothbardian dictate that the market price is the only criterion of justice in the market—roundly rejected by the Magisterium and by Scripture, which condemns all overreaching in business as a matter of revealed truth—Woods even defends price-gouging desperate consumers for necessaries during emergencies. (Ibid., 148-15). The alternative, he argues in all seriousness, is “central planning, reeducation camps, and slavery.” (Ibid., 46-47). His cult, the Mises Institute, literally—and I mean literally—defends Scrooge as an exemplary practitioner of “Austrian economics.”

On and on it goes, and when you confront him on views his reply is always the same: you have caricatured my position. But his position IS a caricature; it is a caricature because it conforms itself to the teaching of Mises and Rothbard rather than the contrary teaching of the Magisterium.

It is time for Woods and his defenders to stop complaining about a vendetta and admit that he is simply a full square opponent of the social teaching of the Church—not just on how to apply it, but in principle. (He is constantly evading his dissent from principle by shifting to arguments about practice.)

Fortunately, Woods has not gotten very far in his campaign to persuade Catholics that the “system” of Mises and Rothbard is “eminently congenial to the Catholic mind.” Too many Catholics have opposed him. I am only one of about a dozen, although Woods, being a rather skillful demagogue, has tried to portray me as a lone fanatic. When that failed, he tried to portray all his critics as “doltish.” The jig, however, is up. The Catholic Herald of England, in favorably reviewing my critique of the “Austro-libertarian” movement last month, has left Woods nowhere to hide.

Wessexman, you’ve got a lot going on, and I’m not sure what there actually is in my posts you are responding to, versus what you are assuming I think about a wide range of issues.

My original and primary point is that a large number of Catholics are unjustly written off as dissenters. I say “unjustly” because the argument purporting to demonstrate this dissent is flimsy: guilt-by-association and oversimplified summaries of Church teaching that, in my humble opinion, harm the conversation rather than facilitate it.

I’m not here to talk about the merits of Austrian economics or to defend John Locke. One need not agree with a particular position in order to recognize and refute a bad argument against it.

Daniel Coleman(and this will suffice as a reply to Stephen Krogh as well.), one can even borrow insights, at the appropriate level of thought and observation, from Marx(if he has any – I am informed his business cycle work may have some use.). The point is not about simply borrowing ideas and insights, but must be about the way it is done and how we integrate into our Christian perspective. There are obviously differences that must be made between different figures and works, depending on the nature of the insights and the figures’ levels of spiritual, metaphysical and philosophical validity; Plato and Aristotle are not Locke or Mises and they should be treated quite differently.
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In a sense this is the problem with Christian liberalism and the Christian Austrians, they treat Mises and Locke et al, if not completely like traditional Christianity has often treated Plato and Aristotle, then at least too much like they did. This allows elements opposed to traditional Christian spirituality and philosophy to enter into their thought and is dangerous.
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Thomas, are we going to have a market dominated by large firms? I personally hope we don’t, but I suppose that is another topic.
When it comes to Locke you bring up a good point. I have not read most of Locke, except what I read in excerpts at university. I have not the time, effort, money or even inclination to read the modernists and post-modernists, at least until I’ve read and bought every half-decent traditional Christian(and indeed Greek and even those of particular beauty and spirituality from other cultures and faiths like the Poetic Eddas or the poems of the great Sufi Saints.). However, from many second hand sources I have gathered that Locke had a lot more wrong with his thought than even you bring up. He was rationalist, nominalist, humanist, individualist, deeply influenced by mechanism and quasi-materialism of Descartes and the ’empiricism’ of Newton; just to give a few of his faults. He was certainly a modernist and in him the Christian based, sublime metaphysics, spirituality and philosophy of the Middle Ages(whether we are talking of St.Gregory Palamas, the Angelic Doctor or Meister Eckhart.) was almost completely missing.

Thomas, I did not seek to exempt Locke from anything. Rather, I only sought to show that Locke’s case, as well as Smith’s had to be shown here. Expecting well-thought-out arguments against a thinker, and accepting the same thinker’s position are different.

I was responding more to Mr. Krogh than to you, for he sought to exempt Locke from the Church’s strictures against liberalism.

No, as a Thomist I certainly am not opposed to Aristotle’s philosophy. But Locke was rejecting the traditional Christian basis for political philosophy. Even if Locke was reacting mainly against Filmer’s erroneous views, what he came up with hardly squares with what Pope Leo said.

Mr. Storck, those are nice passages, but I do not see their relevance to (my contributions to) this thread. After all, I’m not claiming Locke was a Catholic.

Perhaps an analogy would clarify my point: Aristotle also “limits the concerns of government to this-wordly matters and derives its authority from man.” Is this fact an argument against adopting, e.g., Aristotelian ethics or metaphysics? Or could that fact alone refute a Catholic who says he subscribes to virtue ethics, on account of Aristotle’s influence on that school of thought?

I hope you would agree with me that it would be silly to condemn all Aristotelian ideas on that basis. But something just like that is what happens when entire schools of economic thought are rejected on account of a connection with liberalism.

Locke, especially in his (first) Letter Concerning Toleration, limits the concerns of government to this-wordly matters and derives it authority from man. Leo XIII clearly taught against this in his “political” encyclials, e.g., Immortale Dei, Libertas. Please see the two quotations from Immortale Dei below:

Immortale Dei. “3. It is not difficult to determine what would be the form and character of the State were it governed according to the principles of Christian philosophy. Man’s natural instinct moves him to live in civil society, for he cannot, if dwelling apart, provide himself with the necessary requirements of life, nor procure the means of developing his mental and moral faculties. Hence, it is divinely ordained that he should lead his life-be it family, or civil-with his fellow men, amongst whom alone his several wants can be adequately supplied. But, as no society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. `There is no power but from God.'”

“6. As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose ever-bounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its reaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honour the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favour religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety.”

You say that my original claim was that “Locke and Smith [were] acceptable to traditional Christianity.” However, that was not my original point. Perhaps I worded it poorly; rather, my point, which I welcome you to revisit, is that Daniel’s claim that Pope Leo’s condemnation of certain strands of (particularly French) enlightenment regicides and atheists does not necessarily flow over to other enlightenment thinkers, such as Locke and Smith. Perhaps Leo’s condemnations fall upon them as well, but more work has to be done by someone such as yourself and Paul to establish it. Frankly, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t care if Leo had Locke and Smith in mind too. Nonetheless, Paul’s initial claim belied his misunderstanding of Daniel’s post. That was all I sought to point out.

I think it is quite obvious and others will no doubt grasp it easily enough. You brought up Locke and Smith as if they were acceptable to traditional Christianity, whereas anyone with a little knowledge of them knows that they are deeply divergent from the metaphysical, theological and philosophical foundations of Christianity, of the Fathers, of the Schoolmen.

Wessexman, did you just make an argument? If so, could you please repeat it? I’m not trying to be snarky; rather, I’d prefer you state your argument less rhetorically (fewer questions will do), and more straight forwardly. Thanks.

I’m not sure if one can simply equate social democracy (say the British version) with the German social market economy. If we are going to have an economy dominated by large business firms, then the German method of co-determination seems a pretty good way of dealing with it.

Will B,

In a sense Pope Leo was breaking new ground in that he was applying Christian principles to a new kind of social order. But the most basic principles of Catholic social morality – no class conflict, insufficiency of the free market to regulate an economy, solidarity between classes and peoples – were already contained in Catholic teaching and practice, e.g., in the medieval urban economies, regulated by guilds which embodied so many of these principles.

To others,

In dealing with whether I or those whom I’m criticizing have the better case, all I can do is to refer again to what they’ve written and what the popes have written. But to simply assert that I’m wrong or even guessing about my motivations (which in any case are irrelevant) without making any argument or citing any authoritative teachings seems an inadequate way of arguing.

Daniel Coleman,

I don’t think the Catholic Encyclopedia is a particularly good source on the complex question of the magisterium and liberalism. You might want to compare Paul VI’s Octogesima Adveniens, no. 35, where Pope Paul notes that “at the very root of philosophical liberalism is an erroneous affirmation of the autonomy of the individual in his activity, his motivation and the exercise of his liberty.” or John Paul II in Centesimus, no. 10.

‘Thus, Locke and Smith, whom you correctly identify as theists, were not in Daniel’s transom, and unless you can provide an argument to the contrary, not in Pope Leo XIII’s either.’

Are you even serious? Do you know anything about Locke? About liberalism? And the so called renaissance and Enlightenment?

Locke the individualist, Locke the rationalist, Locke the ’empiricist’, Locke the mechanist, Locke the humanist, Locke the nominalist, Locke the father of the British ‘enlightenment’ and illegitimate father even of Rousseau is the enemy of Christianity. You just metaphorically shot yourself in the foot.

I don’t think I have to go into the ‘feelosopher’ Adam Smith, friend and mutual admirer of Hume, Scottish ’empiricist’ and sentimental moralist.

David Coleman and Professor Bartak you are totally wrong, as I said in my comment above;
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‘The exposition of Social Teaching by the Papacy in recent centuries is very important. However if one reads the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and their great contemporaries(Greek, Latin, Celtic, Syriac and Coptic.), the Ecumenical and later Councils, the great Post-Patristic but pre-Scholastic/Palamistic figures like Eriugena, St. Symeon the New Theologian or St.Anselm and the great Schoolmen and their Greek and Western contemporaries like St.Gregory Palamas or Meister Eckhart, then it should be obvious that modernism, whether liberal or what is sometimes called ‘conservative’(and I don’t mean Burke or Bonald but the likes of the National Review.), is deeply and inexcusably divergent from the holistically spiritual mindset of traditional Christianity. There is no excuse for the perspective of Mr.Woods or, it seems, Professor Bartak.’
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We are made in the image of God in a cosmos made through his Intelligible Word, Image and Wisdom.Everything we do, everything we think, everything we know is based in Christ, in his Love and also in his intelligible and symbolic Wisdom, which means that economics, work, production etc are all, or should be, deeply spiritual and deeply symbolic and Intellectual. Liberalism, based on rationalism, nominalism, humanism and individualism is utterly opposed to true, holistic spirituality.
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As the Eastern Orthodox Theologian Philip Sherrard put it; ‘It is just as dangerous to think we can attain a knowledge of God while ignoring, or even denying, His presence in existing things and in their corresponding symbolic rituals as it is for us to think that we attain a knowledge of existing thing while ignoring, or even denying, the Divine presence that informs them and gives them their reality….There is an unbreakable union between the esoteric and exoteric, the feminine and masculine, between the inner reality of a thing and its external appearance. And any genuine knowledge of either depends upon both being regarded as integers of a single unified science.’

There is no such thing as a secular science, even the natural sciences(as the Roman Catholic physicist and philosopher Wolfgang Smith reminds.) must be integrated into a Christian vision, on Christian foundations and not allowed to(and doesn’t) exist independently, and certainly no such thing as a secular ‘social science’. It may be an idle conception, but from an Orthodox position anything that takes away from Christ’s full humanity(and what is the declaration of areas of man’s life being secular, and having nothing to do with Christ, but that?) is dangerous. So that the Austrian and liberal position not only attacks Christ the Logos, as the Intelligible root of all things in the cosmos to which we must look for knowledge of all things, but also Christ the man. Take your new ‘Iconoclasm’ to someone gullible enough to fall for it. Liberalism and the Austrians are enemies of the total man, enemies of contemplation and genuine spirituality and therefore I think I WILL ‘smear the character’ those who venerate Von Mises. There is no excuse for liberalism. If you yourself accept it quietly and otherwise are orthodox then that is a liability, but to spread it to others is something quite different.
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‘Awake then thou that sleepest, and Christ, who from all eternity has been espoused to thy soul, shall give thee light.’

Had you read Daniel Coleman’s post, you would likely have not written the response you did. He said,

“The popes critical of liberalism were dealing with radical atheists of the Enlightenment who were overthrowing governments, killing the king and aristocracy, and legislating against any institution claiming authority on moral or supernatural grounds.”

Thus, Locke and Smith, whom you correctly identify as theists, were not in Daniel’s transom, and unless you can provide an argument to the contrary, not in Pope Leo XIII’s either.

Paul, would you be able to point to a specific instance where a pope condemned by name the economics of John Locke or Adam Smith? There is no such place, as far as I am aware.

Not only that, but Pope Leo XIII uses what is essentially Locke’s argument for the legitimacy of homesteading and private property in sections 7–10 of Rerum Novarum (compare it to Locke’s Second Treatise, chapter 5, sections 25–30).

Neither Locke nor Smith advocated free competition without any limits, by the way.

There is much to object to in your two comments following mine. But will just have to hope people listening in will see what I’m really trying to drive at with this response, and leave it at that.

Daniel Coleman, you speak ignorantly. English Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Smith, and others weren’t atheist and didn’t advocate overthrowing King and authority, and their liberal thinking and economics were condemned by Pope Leo XIII and others. Free competition, without any limits, was strictly condemned, one of the very things demanded by Austrian economists.

And also David, you have to know that the Church doesn’t make economic systems, but She does point out fundamental moral principles that need to be in the economic system. And I don’t believe Tom Woods’ or any of his Austrian capitalist ilk is correct, and in fact go contrary to Catholic social teaching, notwithstanding quite a few contrary assertions here.

David, you would have to read Woods’ other works and article, to see that he specifically says economics is a moral-free science. It is well known in the dispute between liberal economics and Catholic social teaching that this is what he says.

Mr. Storck writes, “They have likewise rejected … classical liberalism, which today is often called neo-liberalism.”

The popes have condemned some tenets of liberalism, but not everything within liberal thought is included in that condemnation. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917 — not exactly a bastion of dissenting teachings — says that “Liberalism may also mean a political system or tendency opposed to centralization and absolutism. In this sense Liberalism is not at variance with the spirit and teaching of the Catholic Church.”

The popes critical of liberalism were dealing with radical atheists of the Enlightenment who were overthrowing governments, killing the king and aristocracy, and legislating against any institution claiming authority on moral or supernatural grounds. The argument that these condemnations are relevant to any Catholic calling himself a “liberal” today — for example, to one who argues for minimal government — is mistaken.

Flawed though it may be, this line of argument is nevertheless a common reaction to people critical of distributism. A Catholic who affirms Austrian economics as sound doesn’t reject moral or supernatural authority, but sadly, that’s the character smear you’ll instantly encounter as soon as someone says “von Mises.”

Yes, Sean, you express also my concern very eloquently. I am absolutely firm on the mission of our Church for social justice, however, I am also very concerned about expanding non-religious dogmas which seem to be anchored in a very shallow and almost ignorant but insistent interpretation of our faith. Sprinkling of holy water is not an argument for religious interpretors.

Hi Paul,
What do you think is wrong with the Thomas Woods quote? Do you think that economics, as a secular science, ought to be ‘imposed upon’ by the Church? I don’t, and to be clear: if an economist makes statements that have specifically moral content, then he is not speaking qua economist, and the magisterium is obviously competent to correct him in such cases. Accordingly, I see no reason to think that Woods is contradicting anything that has been quoted from any papal encyclical. Certainly I don’t see him asserting that “the economic and moral orders are so distinct from and alien to each other that the former depends in no way on the latter.”

[…] conservative Catholics dissent from Church teaching (often without even… …realizing it) Three Strategies for Evasion In his 1965 book, Christianity and Social Progress, Fr. John Cronin wrote as follows:The social […]

I respect the Austrian school of economics and am sympathetic to the view espoused by the Mises Institute. Nevertheless, I remain conflicted. On the one hand, I see sensible economics. On the other hand, some of those economic positions undoubtedly conflict with Rerum Novarum and other social teachings of the Church.

Perhaps you can assist me. When I recently read Rerum Novarum, I was unimpressed by its lack of citation to other authoritative Church teaching. Its citations to the Gospels were scant, as were its citations to prior encyclicals or Church councils. I have not researched Catholic social teaching prior to Rerum Novarum. On what is its authority based? I understand the Pope’s legitimate desire to address certain new issues that were important, but I also recognize that Church teaching does not immediately become the authoritative once an encyclical, or even a series of encyclicals is published. In the life of the Church, the time since Rerum Novarum is relatively short.

I also was recently reading Libertas by Pope Leo, and noticed how it takes a different approach on religious liberty than Vatican II’s document on the subject.

I will continue to try to sort this conflict out for myself through prayer and continued study of Church teaching and economics, but it currently seems to me that Pope Leo’s teaching is the beginning of the discussion of Catholic social teaching, not the end. I truly would appreciate any assistance you can provide, however.

David, did you not see this in the article, quoting Thomas Woods, explicitly dissenting from the Popes’ social teaching:

One hesitates to describe Catholic social teaching as an abuse of papal and ecclesiastical power, but surely the attempt to impose, as moral doctrine binding the entire Catholic world, principles that derive from the popes’ intrinsically fallible reasoning within a secular discipline like economics, seems dubious. At the very least, it appears to constitute an indefensible extension of the prerogatives of the Church’s legitimate teaching office into areas in which it possesses no inherent competence or divine protection from error.5
______________

He’s basically saying the Church has no business imposing morality and ethics into economics!

“When Pope Pius XI says it is, “an error to say that the economic and moral orders are so distinct from and alien to each other that the former depends in no way on the latter,” or when he states that “they are in error who assert that ownership and its right use are limited by the same boundaries,” or “Destroying through forgetfulness or ignorance the social and moral character of economic life, it held that economic life must be considered and treated as altogether free from and independent of public authority, because in the market, i.e., in the free struggle of competitors, it would have a principle of self direction which governs it much more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect,” can we not say that most “conservative” Catholics would find these quotes problematic to their positions?”

I don’t know if they would, but I would assume not. I’m no authority or expert, but this radical pitting of “ultra conservatives” (in Storck’s sense) against the ‘clear’ teaching of the encyclicals seems like a straw man. Are there really ‘ultra conservative’ Catholics who would actually deny the teachings listed above, who would claim, for example, that it is NOT an error to say that “the economic and moral orders are so distinct from and alien to each other that the former depends in no way on the latter”? Really? Then please show me. Insulting those you disagree with doesn’t impress me. You can talk about clarity all you want; show me. You can talk about others using selective quoting all you want; that’s certainly better than no quoting, or selective quoting which obviously fails to demonstrate that which it claims to demonstrate.

When Pope Pius XI says it is, “an error to say that the economic and moral orders are so distinct from and alien to each other that the former depends in no way on the latter,” or when he states that “they are in error who assert that ownership and its right use are limited by the same boundaries,” or “Destroying through forgetfulness or ignorance the social and moral character of economic life, it held that economic life must be considered and treated as altogether free from and independent of public authority, because in the market, i.e., in the free struggle of competitors, it would have a principle of self direction which governs it much more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect,” can we not say that most “conservative” Catholics would find these quotes problematic to their positions? What about Pius XI’s position on guilds and partnership contracts? What about the Leo XIII’s great encyclical “Libertas,” describing authentic liberty? Are these difficult to comprehend as well?
–
My apologies but I do believe we can gather a little more than “vague” ideas from the social teachings of the Church. And, like it or not, “conservative” is an appropriate term to describe one mode of thinking among the Catholic faithful, particularly those engrossed with secular and nationalist ideologies alien to the faith. For sure, along with catechesis, the Church in America has done a poor job of transmitting these teachings to the lay faithful. But we also have access to these encyclicals (on other sites and in our resources section) and can at least start by reading them.

Social teaching of the Popes is a legitimate part of the teaching office of a Pope. Too bad the documents are so nuanced and vague in many areas. A teaching should be clear. Christ said in paraphrase, say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no; anything other than that clarity is from the devil. Why? Because it leads to misinterpretation and dissent.

The real tragedy is not the secular world misunderstanding the social teaching it is that many priests, Bishops, and Cardinals do not understand and or are in dissent about what the church is teaching. If they fail to teach correctly then how do you hold the laity at fault?

Pray for Bishops. I fear that many are in grave need of prayers for them.

“Prudential judgment” has come to be a term abused by conservatives as much as “conscience” is abused by liberals. The blunt assessment to be made is that many Catholics place their political parties above their religion, which is a violation of the First Commandment. Catholic proponents of a total laissez-faire capitalism simply cannot point to any Church document that supports their position, and must resort to sophistry.

‘This article seems to be more of an ongoing personal vendetta against Woods and those who have the training and knowledge in the field of economics’

Huh? I thought Woods was a follower of the Austrian School?

Thomas’s criticism is totally acceptable. To just suggest that the difference is only due to a greater understanding of ‘economics’ is inaccurate and carries with it many assumptions. For instance ‘Economics’ is split on the usefulness of things like the minimum wage. Yes, the Austrians and many right-wing neoclassical economists will tell you these are useless and even pernicious, but many more centrist and leftwing neoclassical economists, as well as post-Keynesians, (old) Institutionalists and so on will give you a much more balanced or even positive view of their effects.
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But more than that I’m willing to state here and now that there masses of faulty assumptions and reasoning in both Austrian and Neoclassical economics, both from a traditional Christian theological and philosophical perspectives and even just within the ‘secular’, internal spheres they set out for themselves. So all this bleeting about the lack of knowledge of the Popes and distributists and the technical and prudential judgments based on ‘Economics’ is just a rouse.

This article seems to be more of an ongoing personal vendetta against Woods and those who have the training and knowledge in the field of economics than an intellectually honest assessment of the topic at hand (I.e. Social Justice). To say that Weigel, Sirico, etc ignore Catholic Social Teaching is simply not truthful. Prudential Judgment must be considered

‘surely the attempt to impose, as moral doctrine binding the entire Catholic world, principles that derive from the popes’ intrinsically fallible reasoning within a secular discipline like economics, seems dubious.’
Someone should inform Mr.Woods that as the cosmos is formed by the intelligible word and image of God and man is made in God’s image then there is nothing that is legitimately ‘secular’ and certainly nothing to do with Man and his society. Our view of production, consumption, economic organisation, work and craftsmanship, technology, the use of land and resources and so on, as well as all areas of society and politics, should be based upon Christian principles.
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That is not to say, of course, that non-traditional Christian fellow travelers cannot be of use to us. I’m a great supporter of delving into their work(one of the great things about distributism is that in so many fields so much of the work has been done for us.), but there should be a unifying, traditional Christian vision behind how we use them and even how we approach the particularities of their work. To simply dismiss economics as ‘secular’ should be absurd to a traditional Christian.
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The exposition of Social Teaching by the Papacy in recent centuries is very important. However if one reads the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and their great contemporaries(Greek, Latin, Celtic, Syriac and Coptic.), the Ecumenical and later Councils, the great Post-Patristic but pre-Scholastic/Palamistic figures like Eriugena, St. Symeon the New Theologian or St.Anselm and the great Schoolmen and their Greek and Western contemporaries like St.Gregory Palamas or Meister Eckhart, then it should be obvious that modernism, whether liberal or what is sometimes called ‘conservative'(and I don’t mean Burke or Bonald but the likes of the National Review.), is deeply and inexcusably divergent from the holistically spiritual mindset of traditional Christianity. There is no excuse for the perspective of Mr.Woods or, it seems, Professor Bartak.
–
‘In other words, while the popes leave much to circumstances of time or place in implementing the demands of justice, the atmosphere of the social encyclicals is not that of neo-liberal economics. It is much more akin to the social democracy of western Europe than to anything in the United States.’
I do have a slight quibble with this passage Thomas. I very much agree with your attacks on Neo-liberalism, but I’m not sure Social Democracy is much better. It is centralised, has little time for genuine autonomy and authority for intermediate associations(whether familial, local communities, churches, voluntary or occupational.), it has little desire to create a genuinely distributist and Christian society, it deprecates individual, familial and social morality and responsibility and it is bound up with left-liberal and statist social engineering, just to list a few of its problems; and it isn’t even that hostile to capitalism, or even corporations, within the framework it marks out for them. I wouldn’t say it was any better or more distributist than neo-liberalism and is in no sense a fellow traveler to distributism.
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Such fellow travelers, of varying acceptability, exist, but you won’t find them among run of the mill left-liberal, social democrats and progressives any more than you’d find them among run of the mill ‘conservatives’ and libertarians. They are generally marginal political and social movements like Social Creditors, Georgists, the Cooperative movements, Agrarians and ‘Back-to-Landers’, the various Schumacher influenced groups, paleoconservatives and other traditional, decentralist conservatives or traditionalists, various sorts of Green groups like the bioregionalists and other low or no growth campaigners, mutualists and similar style anarchists and libertarians, regionalists of various sorts and so forth. Many of these groups have positions or associations that are still quite problematic from a traditional Christian point of view or even just due to practical and tactical considerations, but I’d say you have to go to such groups before you get anything like fellow travelers to distributism and that to associate ourselves, either in our thought or tactically with Social Democracy would be a bad move. Indeed if you talk to ‘conservative’ Christians about distributism they tend to automatically associate it with Social Democracy already, partly through its name(this name, as all know is cumbersome, but for the life of me I cannot think of a better one except to just talk about Christian social policy, Christian economics and so forth.) and partly because of a clichéd view that anything that is not ‘free-market’ must tend towards the Socially Democrat and ultimately socialism. They are then, more often than not, likely to take an immediate hostile view of distributism. I don’t think we gain by increasing our links with Social Democracy among ‘conservative’ Christians and nor will liberals probably pay any more or less notice because of such links(they’ll see we’re anti-capitalist anyway and like that, at least those left-liberals who are not in the end quite fond of corporate-capitalisms and consumerism- this latter are actually most of them, and they’ll see we’re traditional Christians and dislike that.).

I assume you are referring to me when you write, “You certainly also depend on a selective, ultra conservative and somehow regressive reading of that encyclical.”

As I’m sure you’re aware, at least in the U.S., “ultra conservative” means a pro-free market stance, a stance which I criticize and am opposed to. Thus it seems odd for you to call my reading of Centesimus “ultra conservative.”

But if by “ultra conservative” you mean that I interpret that encyclical as consistent with prior social encyclicals, I do indeed plead guilty. If you’ve read my article that is linked to, about the interpretation of Centesimus, you’ll see that there are no compelling reasons to regard it as a fundamental shift in social doctrine.

This interpretation, by the way, is correct according to Pope Benedict in Caritas in Veritate (no. 12), where he states “there is a single [social] teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new.”

“Centesimus Annus represents the beginnings of a shift away from the static zero-sum economic world view that led the Church to be suspicious of capitalism and to argue for wealth redistribution as the only moral response to poverty.”
It is quite interesting that you assume the role of the only correct and infallible interpreter of the encyclical. I challenge this role: You certainly also depend on a selective, ultra conservative and somehow regressive reading of that encyclical.
The encyclical commenced a process of realistic balancing of religious teaching with a mature economic assessment by the Church.

Dear Tapestry,
–
You are right that a person can only do so much and at times it can be a thankless job to even try. So I just wanted to say God bless you! for passing on the encyclicals to those in your small corner. If others imitate you imagine the possibilities!
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Happy Feast of the Assumption!

It just seems to me when I was a child the pastor would give us at least an idea about what a papal document was about. I remember Monsignor Quinan(God rest his soul) would actually read the document if it wasn’t too long instead of giving us a sermon.
But in recent years I can’t remmember a pastor even talking about the Pope or that an encyclical had been published, not a breath of an indication. That isn’t necessarily the fualt of the faithful but the fault of the leadership of the Church. Its like they gave up talking about them shortly after Vatican 2.
I am sure I am one of the few in my parish that has printed out the encyclicals and read them. I would pass it on to someone else who didn’t even knew it existed.
You can only do so much in your small corner of the world.

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